ESSAYS    IN 
SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 


EUGENIO  RIGNANG 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT  LOS  ANGELES 


ROLF  HOFFMANN 


UNIVERSITY  of  CAUFORHJ* 

AT 

LOS  ANGELES 
LIBRARY 


ESSAYS   IN   SCIENTIFIC    SYNTHESIS 


ESSAYS 


IN 


SCIENTIFIC   SYNTHESIS 


BY 


EUGENIC   RIGNANO 

EDITOR    OF   u  SCI1NTIA,"    THE    INTERNATIONAL    REVIEW    OF    SCIENTIFIC    SYNTHESIS 


THE   OPEN   COURT   PUBLISHING  COMPANY 
CHICAGO 

1918 


51-1!  fi 


(All  rights  reserved) 


PREFACE   TO   THE    ENGLISH   EDITION 

THE  essays  composing  this  volume  have  already 
appeared  in  various  periodicals,  such  as  Scientia,  La 
Revue  Philosophique,  La  Revue  du  Mois,  the  Monist, 
and  also  (before  the  war)  in  the  Archiv  fur  die  gesammte 
Psychologie  and  the  Annalen  der  Naturphilosophie. 
They  were  revised  and  published  in  a  French  edition 
in  1912  (Felix  Alcan,  Paris).  Although  each  of  these 
essays  is  a  study  complete  in  itself,  they  are  connected 
by  one  and  the  same  synthetic  spirit,  and  are  animated 
by  one  and  the  same  object :  that  of  demonstrating 
the  utility  in  the  biological,  psychological,  and  socio- 
logical fields  of  the  theorist,  who,  without  having 
specialized  in  any  particular  branch  or  subdivision 
of  science,  may  nevertheless  bring  into  those  spheres 
that  synthetic  and  unifying  vision  which  is  brought 
by  the  theorist-mathematician,  with  so  much  success, 
into  the  physico-chemical  field  of  science. 

It  is  often  said  and  often  repeated  that  the  English 
are  not  attracted  by  broad  generalizations,  which  are 
too  far  above  reality,  and  that  they  cannot,  or  do 
not  care  to,  leave  the  safe  ground  of  facts.  Well !  it 
is  true  that  in  these  essays  an  attempt  is  made  to  reach 
generalizations  of  the  loftiest  scope,  and  that,  too,  in 
those  fields  in  which  the  need  of  such  generalizations 


6          ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

is  most  felt,  and  in  which  the  attempt  is  fraught  with 
the  greatest  risk.  But  in  spite  of  that  I  venture  to 
hope  that  they  will  be  as  warmly  received  in  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  world  as  elsewhere,  because  each  generalization, 
vast  as  it  may  be,  is  not  only  based  upon  the  solid  ground 
of  facts,  but  is  even,  if  I  may  say  so,  constituted  by 
those  countless  facts  themselves,  arranged  in  such  a 
way  that  the  generalization  in  question  spontaneously 
springs  to  light.  In  this,  too,  I  have  done  nothing 
more  than  follow  the  example  which  has  been  given  to 
us  by  some  of  the  most  famous  English  writers. 

If,  then,  the  very  warm  reception  awarded  to  these 
essays  in  France  may  be  traced  to  their  theoretical 
and  synthetic  character,  I  may  venture  to  hope  that 
they  will  be  received  with  an  equal  warmth  in  Britain 
and  America,  when  the  solidity  and  magnitude  of  their 
empirical  basis  is  realized.  And  if,  in  the  eyes  also  of 
that  Anglo-Saxon  public,  this  book  succeeds  in  demon- 
strating the  aforesaid  utility  of  theoretical  investigation 
even  in  these  fields  which  are  of  so  purely  experimental 
a  character,  my  efforts  will  be  amply  rewarded. 

Meanwhile,  one  agreeable  duty  remains  to  be  dis- 
charged :  to  tender  my  best  thanks  to  Mr.  Philip  E.  B. 
Jourdain,  to  whose  suggestion  an  English  edition  is 
due,  and  to  Mr.  W.  J.  Greenstreet,  to  whom  I  am  in- 
debted for  the  English  translation. 

E.  R. 

MILAN,  July  1917. 


PAGE 

PREFACE  TO  THE  ENGLISH  EDITION          .  .      5 

I.  THE  ROLE  OF  THE  THEORIST  IN  THE  SCIENCES 
OF  BIOLOGY  AND  SOCIOLOGY      i  .  .      9 

II.  THE    SYNTHETIC    VALUE    OF    THE    EVOLUTION 

THEORY     .          ,.  .          v  •  ,.28 

III.  BIOLOGICAL  MEMORY  IN   ENERGETICS        .  .    54 

IV.  ON  THE  MNEMIC  ORIGIN  AND   NATURE  OF  THE 

AFFECTIVE  TENDENCIES  .        :  .  ,  -90 

V.  WHAT  is  CONSCIOUSNESS  ?  .  ,  , ' , , ,'  .  133 

VI.  THE  RELIGIOUS  PHENOMENON         .  .  .151 

VII.  HISTORIC  MATERIALISM        .  .  - .  .  188 

VIII.  SOCIALISM       ....  .  .  216 

INDEX  OF  AUTHORS  CITED.  .  .  .  251 

INDEX  OF  SUBJECTS  .  .  .  .  .  253 


ASSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 


THE   ROLE   OF   THE   THEORIST  IN 
THE   SCIENCES  OF  BIOLOGY  AND  SOCIOLOGY 


SUPPOSE  a  mathematician  were  to  examine  all  avail- 
able records  of  experimental  research  in  physics,  and 
to  make  himself  master  of  the  results  reported 
and  described  in  the  literature  of  the  subject.  And 
suppose  that  he  then  shut  himself  up  in  his  study 
and  proceeded  to  a  general  consideration  of  the  bear- 
ing of  those  results,  in  the  course  of  which  he 
modified  current  conceptions  and  accepted  theories, 
and  broached  new  theories  of  his  own.  Let  us 
further  suppose  that  it  were  now  discovered  that  this 
"  theorist "  had  never  made  an  experiment  in  his 
life,  or  that  he  had  never  seen,  even  from  a  distance, 
a  scientific  instrument.  The  discovery  would  awaken 
no  comment.  Such  a  carefully  finished  theory  as  the 
mathematician  has  worked  out  is  made  by  means 
of  analyses  and  comparisons,  of  generalizations  and 
hypotheses,  tested  and  verified  by  the  correspon- 
dence of  the  facts  with  the  results  of  reasoning.  None 
can  question  the  value  and  the  need  of  such  work,  if 
we  are  to  have  a  progressive  systematization,  and  are 


lo        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

to  approach  an  ever-closer  synthesis  of  the  confused 
mass  of  facts  which  in  a  continuous  flood  are  poured 
forth  by  research  upon  the  scientific  market.  Nor  will 
adverse  comment  be  aroused  if  the  physico-mathema- 
tician,  instead  of  devoting  the  whole  of  his  life  to  one 
given  line  of  research,  turns,  on  the  contrary,  from 
one  branch  of  physics  to  another  with  which  it  seems 
to  have  little  or  nothing  in  common — from  celestial 
mechanics  to  the  elasticity  of  bodies,  from  hydro- 
dynamics to  thermodynamics,  from  electricity  to  optics. 
Most  will  agree  that  it  is  just  this  very  synthetic  tendency 
which  the  theorist  brings  into  such  different  domains 
that  facilitates  his  discovery  of  the  hidden  characteristics 
which  may  be  possessed  in  common  by  phenomena 
apparently  unrelated,  and  which  thus  enables  him  to 
construct  new  and  higher  syntheses.  And  we  are  at 
once  reminded,  as  a  typical  instance,  of  the  wonderful 
synthesis  of  optical  and  electrical  phenomena  based 
by  Clerk  Maxwell  on  theory  alone.  But  if  an  attempt 
of  the  same  kind  is  made  by  another  "  theorist  "  in 
the  domain  of  the  biological  and  sociological  sciences — 
and  more  particularly  the  former — it  is  quite  a  different 
story.  There  is  a  general  outcry,  and  he  is  accused 
of  intrusion,  of  stepping  out  of  his  province.  What 
earthly  right  have  you  to  speak  of  biology,  if  you  have 
never  seen  a  cell  in  a  microscope,  if  you  have  never 
made  an  experiment  on  the  transmission  of  nervous 
currents  or  on  muscular  contraction,  if  you  have  never 
analysed  a  product  of  the  physiological  reaction  of  an 
organism  under  a  stimulus  ? 

Nevertheless,  the  useful  part  that  is  played  in  the 
physical  sciences  by  the  theorists,  in  so  far  as  they 


THE    RdLE  OF  THE  THEORIST  li 

are  mathematicians,  may  be  tried  with  advantage  by 
other  theorists,  even  in  those  domains  of  the  knowable 
which  do  not  lend  themselves  to  the  application  of 
the  mathematical  method.  There  is  not  the  slightest 
doubt  that  this  method  is  a  marvellous  instrument 
for  the  working  out  of  a  theory  from  experimental 
facts  ;  but  it  does  not  in  the  least  follow  that  it  is 
anything  more  than  an  instrument,  and  it  certainly 
cannot  claim  to  be  the  one  and  only  instrument  which 
our  theorist  has  at  his  disposal. 

The  important  thing  in  working  out  a  theory  is  essen- 
tially the  creative  act,  which  consists  in  detecting  new 
analogies,  in  proceeding  to  new  generalizations,  in 
opening  up  new  horizons,  and  in  framing  new  hypotheses. 
In  this  respect,  the  theorist  who  can  employ  calculation, 
and  the  theorist  who  is  debarred  therefrom  by  the 
very  nature  of  the  object  of  his  researches,  are  on  an 
equal  footing.  The  former  may  often  be  assisted  by 
the  contingent  resemblance  of  the  formulas  into  which 
the  two  orders  of  phenomena  to  be  compared  may  be 
translated  ;  but  the  latter,  on  the  other  hand,  may 
reap  advantage  from  his  unbroken  contact  with  that 
reality  which  the  complicated  symbols  of  calculation 
frequently  conceal  or  cause  to  be  forgotten. 

The  superiority  of  the  instrument  at  the  disposal  of 
the  theorist-mathematician  appears  only  later,  when 
it  is  a  question  of  deducing  the  consequences  of  all 
that  has  been  conjectured,  and  of  verifying  in  this 
manner  the  hypothesis  suggested.  This  superiority 
consists  in  the  much  greater  number  and  certainty 
of  the  consequences  deduced,  and  in  the  much  greater 
rigour  in  verification  made  possible  by  the  quantitative 


12        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

nature  of  the  phenomena  studied.  But  the  superiority 
is  one  of  degree  and  not  of  principle,  for  mathematical 
reasoning  does  not  differ  substantially  from  ordinary 
reasoning. 

Mathematics  are  very  far  from  being  necessary  and 
indispensable  in  every  method  by  which  a  theory  is 
worked  up,  and  there  is  therefore  no  reason  to  doubt 
the  utility  and  fertility  of  theories  constructed  without 
mathematical  aid  in  those  sciences  which,  by  their 
very  nature,  do  not  admit  of  the  use  of  calculation. 

As  in  the  physical  sciences,  so  in  the  biological  and 
sociological — and  in  the  former  especially — there  are 
many  reasons,  it  is  true,  why  the  "  theorist  "  is  inferior 
to  the  man  who  has  made  experiment  his  special  field 
of  labour. 

The  former  does  not,  in  fact,  possess  an  integral  and 
complete  representation  of  the  phenomena  which  con- 
stitute the  object  of  his  research,  and  which  he  knows 
only  by  means  of  the  data  furnished  by  the  skilled 
experimenter.  What  the  latter  describes  and  notes 
of  his  observations  and  experiments  is  but  a  very  small 
part  of  all  that  he  has  really  seen  and  observed.  An 
infinite  number  of  small  details,  most  of  which  he  has 
not  considered  important  enough  to  be  reported  in 
his  statement  of  results,  and  a  considerable  number 
of  which  he  has  not  particularly  noticed,  constitute, 
however,  a  very  rich  and  valuable  store  upon  which 
he  can  draw  to  fill  in  the  framework  of  the  development 
of  the  phenomenon.  No  verbal  description,  no  drawing, 
no  photograph  can  ever  give  in  all  its  fullness  and  rich- 
ness the  brilliant  vision  which  has  passed  before  the 
eagerly  watchful  and  wondering  eyes  of  the  observer. 


THE   R6LE  OF  THE  THEORIST  13 

The  theorist  may  be  compared  to  a  man  who  is  colour- 
blind, who  can  see  nothing  but  the  dry,  bare  outlines 
of  a  landscape  filled  with  light. 

Moreover,  all  the  small  details  of  secondary  impor- 
tance which  the  skilled  observer  has  noticed  directly, 
but  which  he  has  not  reported,  all  the  attempts  that 
have  failed,  all  the  tests  and  controls  which  were 
repeated  over  and  over  again  before  he  succeeded  in 
firmly  establishing  each  of  his  experiments — all  that, 
in  a  word,  which  implies  an  apprenticeship  in  this  or 
that  form  of  research,  and  of  which  nothing  appears 
in  his  statement  of  results — all  these  furnish  him  with  a 
rich  harvest  of  facts,  of  the  existence  of  which,  however, 
the  theorist  must  always  be  ignorant.  Thus  the  theorist 
in  each  branch  of  research  must  necessarily  be  in  pos- 
session of  a  much  smaller  number  of  particular  ideas 
than  the  specialist ;  he  is  much  less  a  master  of  his 
subject,  and  much  less  sure  in  his  statements  as  to 
details. 

The  theorist,  finally,  can  never  put  to  an  immediate 
test  his  own  theories  and  hypotheses  ;  he  cannot  dispel 
by  direct  observation  the  doubts  by  which  he  is  inces- 
santly assailed,  nor  can  he  verify  at  once  the  value  of 
his  ideas.  For  every  additional  observation  or  experi- 
ment he  requires  he  is  dependent  on  the  work  of  some 
one  else — work  for  which  he  may  have  to  wait  an  indeter- 
minate time,  and  which,  even  with  the  best  will  in  the 
world,  can"  never  be  carried  out  by  others  in  perfect 
accordance  with  the  criteria  and  conditions  which  the 
theorist  himself  would  desire  and  require.  Thus  the 
theorist  is  often  somewhat  in  the  position  of  the  paralytic 
who  can  neither  grasp  nor  move  at  will  what  lies  in 


14        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

front  of  him,  and  may  therefore  long  remain  uncertain 
as  to  the  accuracy  of  the  impression  he  has  formed  of 
this  or  that  object  which  he  can  see  but  cannot  touch. 

But  if  all  these  conditions  place  the  theorist  in  a 
position  of  inferiority  to  the  experimentalist,  there 
are  other  relations  in  which  that  position  is  reversed. 
For  if  the  more  schematic  and  less  particularized  repre- 
sentations of  phenomena  possessed  by  the  theorist 
have  their  disadvantages,  from  another  point  of  view 
their  advantages  are  real  and  characteristic.  They 
suggest  a  more  abstract  conception  of  phenomena  in 
place  of  the  much  too  concrete  conception  which  has 
been  impressed  upon  the  mind  of  the  experimentalist 
by  the  very  length  and  care  of  his  observations.  A 
scheme  is  already  in  itself  a  generalization  of  the  par- 
ticular fact ;  it  forms  a  preliminary  synthesis,  which 
thus  represents  the  first  and  most  important  step  to 
subsequent  syntheses  of  a  higher  order. 

The  theorist  in  his  search  for  wider  and  wider  generali- 
zations and  syntheses  does  not  merely  begin  his  labours, 
thanks  to  the  more  schematic  representations  from 
which  he  starts,  at  a  point  in  advance  of  the  skilled 
experimentalist.  He  is  also  unhampered  by  the  multi- 
tude of  individual  facts  and  concrete  details  which  are 
vividly  impressed  on  the  other's  mind,  so  that  he  is 
much  more  free  and  untrammelled  in  his  path  to 
ulterior  generalizations  and  syntheses. 

The  theorist  has  also  much  more  opportunity,  and 
finds  it  very  much  easier,  to  place  himself  rapidly  au 
courant  with  the  present  position  of  the  fundamental 
questions  which  are  dealt  with  in  the  most  dissimilar 
divisions  and  subdivisions  of  a  subject.  Material  opera- 


THE    RdLE  OF  THE  THEORIST  15 

tions  do  not  engage  his  attention  at  all ;  and  by  read- 
ing for  a  few  hours  he  can  master  the  results  attained 
by  a  specialist  perhaps  after  a  whole  year's  assiduous, 
prolonged,  and  difficult  research.  Besides,  the  technique 
is  so  delicate  and  varies  so  much  in  the  various  branches 
of  science,  and  even  in  the  various  subdivisions  of 
the  same  branch  of  science,  that  the  specialist  finds 
the  greatest  difficulty  in  passing  from  one  order  of 
phenomena  to  another.  The  very  long  apprenticeship 
required  by  the  nature  of  certain  classes  of  research 
often  leads  the  specialist  to  spend  his  whole  life  at  it. 
On  the  contrary,  if  the  faculty  of  rapidly  grasping  the 
essentials  of  a  subject  from  a  study  of  its  literature 
equally  requires  a  real  and  characteristic  technique — 
which  may  seem  to  the  skilled  experimentalist  much 
easier  than  it  really  is — at  least  it  remains  constant  for 
all  orders  of  phenomena.  That  is  why  the  theorist 
meets  with  no  difficulty  as  he  covers  the  divisions  and 
subdivisions  of  even  a  very  wide  field  of  research.  It 
is  thenceforth  all  the  easier  for  him  to  embrace  in  a 
single  glance  branches  of  science  of  the  most  dissimilar 
character  and  with  the  fewest  points  of  contact,  and 
thus  to  span  the  wide  abysses  by  which  they  are  still 
separated. 

It  may  be  laid  down,  finally,  that  in  general  the 
theorist  is  less  exclusive,  less  one-sided,  and  more 
objective  than  the  skilled  experimentalist.  The  latter, 
in  fact,  in  his  observations  and  experiments  is  always 
guided,  consciously  or  unconsciously,  by  some  idea, 
some  view  or  hypothesis,  which  is  his  own  or  has  been 
borrowed  by  him  from  some  one  else.  Now,  the  very 
fact  that  during  a  very  long  time,  through  all  His  observa- 


16        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

tions  and  experiments,  he  is  swayed  by  this  single  con- 
trolling idea,  implies  that  it  becomes  crystallized,  as  it 
were,  and  transformed  into  a  mental  habit  strong 
enough  to  dominate,  readily  and  inevitably,  any  con- 
tradictory point  of  view.  But  the  theorist,  on  the 
contrary,  has  a  greater  opportunity  of  becoming  aware 
of  the  most  varied  and  antagonistic  points  of  view,  is 
not  delayed  in  his  course  by  one  of  them  more  than  by 
another,  gives  to  each  in  turn  the  same  time  and  intellec- 
tual attention,  and,  consequently,  is  not  "  polarized  " 
in  any  particular  direction,  and  does  not  feel  himself 
irresistibly  attracted  towards  any  one  standpoint  in 
particular.  He  is  thus  the  better  disposed  to  judge 
calmly  and  objectively  the  arguments  and  objections 
of  both  sides,  and  in  this  way  is  often  able  to  extract 
from  the  many  points  of  view,  which  he  has  examined 
and  found  to  befall  more  or  less  biassed,  a  less  partial 

o  &       A 

point  of  view  of  \  his  own,  which,  consequently,  will  be 
more  likely  to  approximate  to  the  reality.  Thus  the 
theorist  can  figure  as  an  impartial  judge  in  those 
frequent,  obstinate,  and  endless  disputes  in  which  the 
rival  schools  of  specialists  seek  in  vain  to  score  an 
unequivocal  triumph. 

Things  being  so,  we  can  quite  understand  how  the 
work  of  the  theorist  and  that  of  the  skilled  experimen- 
talist, so  far  from  being  mutually  exclusive,  are  really 
complementary.  Moreover,  the  supreme  importance 
which — far  more  than  in  the  physical  sciences — this 
action  of  the  theorist  in  the  biological  and  sociological 
sciences  can  and  should  have,  is  the  more  evident  as  in 
these  sciences  the  mass  of  individual  details  to  be  system- 
atized is  so  confused  and  complicated,  and  as  the  sub- 


THE    R6LE  OF  THE  THEORIST  17 

divisions  in  separate  and  more  or  less  autonomous  sub- 
jects are  so  numerous  and  so  specialized.  The  more  this 
is  realized,  the  more  keenly  is  felt  the  need  of  co-ordi- 
nation and  synthesis  in  these  sciences.  This  is  proved 
even  more  effectively  and  thrown  into  broader  relief 
by  the  following  instances,  which  I  have  selected 
merely  for  the  purpose  of  illustrating  my  argument. 

Let  us,  for  instance,  take  the  question  of  vitalism. 
In  the  long  run  it  must  reduce  itself  to  the  acceptance 
or  denial  of  the  possibility  of  the  reduction  of  the  vital 
phenomenon  to  some  already  known  physico-chemical 
"  model,"  suitably  modified  by  certain  special  additional 
conditions,  which  determine  exactly  in  what  this  vital 
phenomenon  differs  from  the  phenomenon  nearest  to 
it  in  the  inorganic  world,  and  which  thus  reveal  the 
fundamental  and  peculiar  properties  of  life. 

But  has  the  question  ever  been  set  in  such  terms  as 
alone  are  capable  of  restraining  it  within  its  real  limits  ? 
It  has  not !  The  biologists  are  divided  into  two 
diametrically  opposite  camps,  equally  opposed  to  any 
compromise.  Some  eagerly  deny  all  possibility  of  ever 
understanding  the  nature  of  life,  even  by  the  medium 
of  remote  analogies  with  the  inorganic  world,  however 
suitably  modified  and  transformed.  Others,  on  the 
contrary,  refuse  to  allow  that  life  possesses  any  peculiar 
property  apart  from  the  properties,  known  and  well- 
known,  of  the  physico-chemical  world.  It  is  evident 
that  there  is  exaggeration  on  both  sides,  and  this  must 
be  so,  because  the  question  has  been  dealt  with  only  by 
specialists,  and  therefore  never  with  real  impartiality. 

The  physiologist-chemist  whose  special  technique 
brings  him  into  contact  only  with  the  pure  and  simple 

2 


phenomena  of  transformation  which  take  place  among 
the  different  organic  substances,  such  as  already  exist 
or  are  produced  in  the  already  formed  and  functioning 
organism,  sees  but  this  one  small  side  of  the  functions 
of  the  latter.  Just  as  a  man  with  intensely  blue  glasses 
can  see  none  of  the  other  infinitely  numerous  colours 
before  his  eyes,  so  the  physiologist-chemist,  because 
of  the  very  technique  he  employs,  can  see  none  of  those 
other  phenomena  of  life  which  are  developed  in  the 
organism  at  the  same  time  as  the  purely  chemical 
phenomena.  And  the  more  closely  he  succeeds  in 
following  one  after  the  other  and  in  detail  the  successive 
stages  of  a  given  complex  process,  the  more  certain  is 
his  conviction  that  he  is  finding  in  chemistry  an  explana- 
tion of  the  whole  of  life.  In  this  line  of  argument  he 
forgets  that,  even  in  the  narrow  circle  within  which  his 
technique  is  confined,  the  intimate  vital  phenomenon — 
producing  certain  exchanges  rather  than  others  which 
from  the  purely  chemical  point  of  view  would  be  equally 
possible — that  phenomenon  completely  escapes  him. 
It  is  just  as  if  a  chemist,  who  happens  to  be  ignorant 
of  the  existence  and  properties  of  the  electric  current, 
were  to  consider  that  his  knowledge  of  the  phenome- 
non of  electrolysis  was  quite  complete  because  he  finds 
that  the  products  obtained  may  be  atomically  derived 
from  the  primitive  compounds  originally  employed. 

Opposed  to  this  is  the  one-sided  tendency  which 
considers  it  impossible  to  explain  the  vital  phenomenon, 
and  therefore  necessary  to  appeal  to  a  mysterious 
something,  which  is  more  or  less  directly  or  indirectly 
connected  with  the  ancient  conception  of  a  spiritual 
soul  detached  from  the  material  body,  and  which  thus 


THE  R6LE  OF  THE  THEORIST  19 

digs  the  deepest  and  most  impassable  abyss  between 
the  organic  and  inorganic  worlds.  This  tendency  is 
usually  manifested  in  the  other  specialists,  who  take  as 
their  subject  of  study  only  those  phenomena  of  life 
which  are  remotest  from  physico-chemical  phenomena. 
Instances  in  point  are  ontogenetic  development,  during 
which  that  wonderful  "  machine "  of  the  organism 
builds  itself  by  its  own  activity ;  or,  again,  subjects  of 
a  psychical  order,  from  the  simplest  instincts  to  the 
loftiest  phenomena  of  thought,  all  processes  in  which 
the  "  finalism  "  of  life  appears  most  evident — that 
"  finalism  "  of  life  which  has  on  the  contrary  been 
almost  ignored  in  physico-chemical  research. 

The  middle  course  would  consist  in  asking  first  of 
all  if  life  may  not  be  due  to  some  special  form  of  energy 
with  its  own  characteristics,  just  as  in  the  case  of  the 
different  forms  of  energy  in  the  inorganic  world,  and 
then  in  setting  to  work  to  find  out,  by  means  of  successive 
modifications  in  one  or  another  direction  of  some  suit- 
ably chosen  physico-chemical  model,  what  characteris- 
tics of  vital  energy  are  partly  like  and  partly  unlike 
those  of  the  model  chosen.  This  course  can  be  followed 
only  by  the  man  who  can  take  into  equal  consideration 
all  the  biological  phenomena,  both  those  which  closely 
resemble  this  or  that  other  process  of  the  inorganic 
world,  and  those  which  have  no  resemblance  to  such 
processes.  No  order  of  phenomena  must  be  neglected, 
for  each  will  show  some  feature  of  peculiar  interest, 
which  will  help  in  bringing  to  light  one  or  other  of  the 
elementary  and  fundamental  characteristics  of  life. 

The  relations  between  physiology  and  morphology, 
for  instance,  must  be  studied  with  the  object  of  dis- 


ao       ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

covering,  not  only  how  the  morphological  and  chemical 
structure  determines  this  or  that  function  or  specific 
physiological  activity — a  question  in  the  domain  of 
physiology,  in  the  narrow  sense  of  the  word — but  also, 
and  principally,  how  this  or  that  function,  this  or  that 
specific  physiological  activity,  determines  the  morpho- 
logical and  chemical  structure.  This  also  implies  the 
study  of  all  the  phenomena  known  as  phenomena  of 
"  adaptation,"  and  indicates  a  line  of  research  which 
is  still  too  much  neglected  by  the  specialists.  The 
phenomena  of  development,  of  regeneration,  and  the 
like,  according  to  which  the  organism  is  "  self-repro- 
ductive " — comprising  in  this  wide  order  of  research 
all  that  has  been  called  the  "  mechanics  "  of  develop- 
ment— will  be  compared  with  the  physiological  pheno- 
mena presented  by  the  "  organism  machine  "  already 
formed,  and  especially  with  the  phenomena  of  "  adapta- 
tion "  just  mentioned,  because  in  ontogenetic  phenomena 
also  we  have  in  the  long  run  to  do  with  processes  which 
determine  the  morphological  and  chemical  structure 
of  the  different  parts  of  the  organism  in  the  course  of 
its  formation. 

But  these  phenomena  of  development,  if  once  the 
transmissibility  of  acquired  characters  is  definitively 
placed  beyond  a  doubt,  are  indubitably  and  intimately 
connected  with  the  mechanism  of  that  transmission  ; 
it  is  even  clear  that  they  are  nothing  more  than  the 
resultant,  the  product,  of  the  action  of  that  mechanism. 
On  the  other  hand,  once  this  mechanism  of  transmission 
exists,  and  whatever  may  be  its  nature,  it  cannot  be 
in  the  long  run  anything  but  a  process  of  reproduction 
by  internal  causes  of  given  structures  or  corresponding 


THE    ROLE  OF  THE  THEORIST  2! 

physiological  states,  already  determined  in  the  past  by 
the  external  world.  It  is  therefore  appropriate  to  com- 
pare it — passing  from  biology  to  psychology — to  mnemic 
evocation  properly  so  called,  which  in  the  same  way  is 
a  process  of  reproduction  by  internal  causes  of  certain 
peculiar  physiological  states  of  the  brain,  constituting 
the  "  sensations,"  and  also  determined  in  the  past  by 
the  external  world. 

The  vague  analogy  which  is  thus  manifested  between 
the  phenomena  of  ontogenetic  development  by  means 
of  the  transmissibility  of  acquired  characters  and  the 
psycho-mnemic  phenomena  compels  further  research 
in  an  entirely  new  domain,  which  has  been  only  recently 
investigated,  that  of  the  psychology  of  the  inferior 
organisms,  and  in  another  which  has  been  entirely 
reconstructed  during  the  last  few  years,  that  of  vegetable 
physio-psychology.  We  must  see  if  this  mnemic  pro- 
perty is  really  manifested,  and  with  what  peculiar 
modalities,  by  the  inferior  organisms  deprived  of 
nervous  system  and  by  the  plants  themselves.  Jen- 
nings was  the  first  to  succeed  in  doing  this  in  the 
lowest  pluricellular  organisms  and  also  in  unicellular 
organisms ;  Francis  Darwin,  Haberlandt,  and  many 
others  have  verified  it  in  the  case  of  plants. 

This  leads  to  the  suspicion  that  the  mnemic  property 
is  more  general  than  we  have  hitherto  had  any  reason 
to  suppose,  and  then  we  are  forced  to  return  to 
the  above-mentioned  phenomena  of  "  adaptation  "  in 
general,  and  to  inquire  if  the  phenomena  which  result 
from  "  specialization "  of  tissues,  from  cellular  or 
nuclear  "  somatization,"  the  inevitable  sequel  of  this 
or  that  sufficiently  prolonged  functional  habit,  would 


22        ESSAYS   IN   SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

not  also  be  nothing  but  other  different  aspects  of  the 
same  mnemic  property.  We  are  thus  brought  to  a  new 
and  careful  revision  of  all  phenomena  which  have  a 
"  finalist  "  aspect — from  the  morphological  and  func- 
tional "  Zweckmassigkeit  "  [finality]  of  the  organism 
and  of  the  ontological  development  to  the  instincts 
and  even  all  the  psychical  facts  of  the  highest  order — 
to  see  if  they  also  cannot  be  reduced,  more  or  less  directly 
or  indirectly,  to  this  very  general  tendency  to  reproduce, 
by  internal  causes,  given  structures  and  given  physio- 
logical states,  already  determined  directly  by  the 
external  world  in  a  more  or  less  distant  past.  This 
would  reduce  finalism  itself  to  a  mere  derivative  from 
the  mnemic  property,  which  would  thus  be  raised  to 
the  role  of  a  fundamental  property  of  life. 

Assimilation,  finally,  is  itself  in  the  long  run  nothing 
but  a  process  of  continual  reproduction,  by  which  the 
specific  substances  destroyed  in  the  period  of  functional 
activity  become  reconstituted,  perfectly  identical,  in 
the  subsequent  period  of  functional  repose  (Claude 
Bernard) .  And  it  is  also  a  phenomenon  at  once  chemical 
and  physical :  a  chemical  phenomenon  in  so  far  as 
given  nutritive  substances  come  to  form  others  of  a 
different  chemical  composition  ;  and  a  physical  pheno- 
menon in  so  far  as  very  delicate  investigations  have 
recently  seemed  to  show  the  intimate  dependence  of 
the  process  of  assimilation  on  given  and  essentially 
specific  physical  conditions — as,  for  instance,  this  or 
that  group  of  spectral  rays  with  a  well-determined 
vibratory  period  in  relation  to  the  specific  metabolic 
process  of  this  or  that  tissue  or  of  this  or  that  micro- 
organism, Thus  research  will  be  carried  into  the  very 


THE   R6LE  OF  THE  THEORIST  23 

frontiers  of  biology,  chemistry,  and  physics,  with  the 
object  of  discovering  what  analogies  and  what  relations 
exist,  on  the  one  hand,  between  the  mnemic  property 
and  assimilation,  and  between  assimilation  and  certain 
phenomena  of  a  chemical  and  physical  order  on  the 
other. 

These  very  rapid  considerations  will,  I  think,  suffice 
to  show  how,  at  the  very  outset  of  an  investigation  of 
the  question  of  vitalism  and  of  the  problem  of  the 
discovery  of  the  most  elementary  and  fundamental 
properties  of  life,  we  must  enter  the  widest  and  most 
dissimilar  fields  of  an  all-embracing  biological  and 
psychological  research.  But  if,  in  the  sequel,  these 
elementary  fundamental  properties  of  life,  of  which  we 
have  thus  caught  a  glimpse,  should  be  considered  in 
their  turn  as  depending  upon  some  still  more  elementary 
energetic  property  belonging  to  a  quite  special  form  of 
energy  at  the  basis  of  life,  then,  before  we  can  construct 
the  most  appropriate  "  model,"  we  must  extend  the 
field  of  research  still  further  to  all  the  phenomena  of 
the  physical  world. 

Thus  it  is  clear  that  the  theorist,  and  the  theorist 
alone,  can  succeed  in  embracing  so  extensive  a  field  of 
research,  and  that,  consequently,  he  alone  can  properly 
approach  a  question  so  fundamental  and  problems  of 
such  extreme  difficulty. 

If  I  have  said  so  much  on  the  question  of  vitalism, 
it  is  because  it  is  perhaps  the  most  typical  and  the  most 
suitable  subject  to  illustrate  the  task  that  the  theorist 
must  undertake,  even  outside  the  inorganic  sciences — 
a  task  which  is  not  merely  useful  but  indispensable. 
But  the  same  conclusion  follows  from  the  considera- 


24        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

tion  of  any  other  question,  which  by  reason  of  its 
very  generality  embraces  numerous  subdivisions  of 
the  same  branch  of  science,  or  still  more,  embraces 
several  branches  simultaneously. 

The  affective  tendencies,  for  instance,  which  underlie 
all  the  fundamental  psychological  phenomena,  from 
the  attention  and  the  will  to  even  the  loftiest  mental 
processes,  form  by  their  origin  and  nature  the  closest 
link  between  physiological  and  psychological  phenomena. 
Some  of  them,  such  as  hunger,  the  sexual  need,  and 
the  like,  seem  to  belong  almost  exclusively  to  the  domain 
of  physiology  ;  others,  such  as  what  we  call  the  higher 
aspirations,  seem  on  the  contrary  to  come  within  the 
province  of  the  psychologist.  However,  it  is  clear 
that  the  nature  of  the  one  group  must  be  identical  with 
that  of  the  other.  Hence,  neither  the  pure  physiologist 
nor  the  pure  psychologist  can  understand  their  origin 
and  nature.  Such  a  study  is  possible  to  the  theorist 
alone,  for  he  can  embrace  within  a  single  glance  the 
whole  of  both  domains. 

And  so  in  the  case  of  consciousness  :  the  psychologist, 
in  the  narrow  sense  of  the  word,  i.e.  the  man  whose 
appropriate  technique  consists  solely  in  introspection, 
can  never  understand  the  nature  and  determine  the 
conditions  of  consciousness.  The  phenomena,  in  fact, 
with  which  he  is  provided  by  his  technique  are  never 
anything  but  conscious  phenomena.  The  reason  why 
the  very  same  acts,  the  very  same  associations  of  ideas, 
the  very  same  processes  of  reasoning,  may  be  conscious 
at  one  time  and  unconscious  at  another,  will  be  as 
impossible  for  him  to  discover  as  if  he  were  a  meteoro- 
logist, living  in  a  valley  in  which  it  does  nothing  but 


THE   R6LE  OF  THE  THEORIST  25 

rain,  and  trying  to  discover  the  conditions  which  deter- 
mine at  one  time  fine  weather  and  at  another  bad  :  to 
effect  his  purpose  he  must  of  necessity  leave  the  region 
of  perpetual  rain.  Just  in  the  same  way  the  psychologist 
must  get  out  of  the  region  of  conscious  phenomena, 
and  must  therefore  embrace  a  much  wider  field  than 
that  in  which  his  own  limited  technique  is  effective. 

The  religious  phenomenon,  in  its  turn,  has  always 
been  considered  with  a  bias.  Sometimes  it  is  viewed 
from  a  purely  psychological  and  sometimes  from  a 
purely  sociological  point  of  view.  The  result  has  been 
that  psychologists,  both  those  of  the  English  "  animist  " 
school  of  Tylor,  and  those  who  belong  to  the  school 
which  has  adopted  Hoffding's  doctrine  of  the  conserva- 
tion of  values,  have  completely  missed  the  meaning  of 
social  significance  and  function  ;  while  the  sociologists, 
as,  for  instance,  those  of  the  new  French  school  of  Durk- 
heim,  who  have  thrown  into  such  bold  relief  and  who 
have  studied  with  such  penetration  the  social  side  of 
the  phenomenon,  have  shown  themselves  quite  incapable 
of  accounting  for  the  process  of  formation  of  the  intel- 
lectual and  affective  mentality  of  the  believer.  Neither 
psychologists  nor  sociologists  have  perceived  that  the 
elementary  phenomenon  itself,  around  which  the 
immense  scaffolding  of  religious  beliefs  and  institutions 
has  been  organized  and  developed,  is  in  its  essence  a 
phenomenon  that  is  both  psychological  and  sociological. 

Similarly,  the  debate  in  the  sociological  domain 
between  the  champions  and  the  adversaries  of  historic 
materialism  has  never  been  carried  on  impartially. 
We  may  venture  to  say  that  the  expert  economists 
have  seen  in  the  whole  aggregate  of  sociological 


26        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

phenomena  nothing  more  than  the  economical  pheno- 
menon, which  they  have  thus  raised  to  the  rank  of  the 
supreme  and  only  factor  in  the  whole  of  social  evolution. 
Lawyers  and  "  ideologues  "  in  general,  each  studying 
only  law,  or  only  ethics,  or  only  some  other  order  of 
normative  phenomena,  have  awarded  a  no  less  excessive 
importance  in  the  social  determinism  to  the  ideological 
factor,  that  is  to  say,  to  their  phenomenon.  The  very 
tendency  to  bias  with  which  the  discussion  has  been 
carried  on  by  both  sides  has  prevented  both  from 
establishing  the  exact  share  of  the  two  great  factors  in 
the  struggle,  the  legal  and  the  economic. 

Finally,  in  the  economic  field  itself,  there  is  the 
fundamental  antithesis  between  socialism  and  liberal 
economics,  which,  in  the  narrow  domain  to  which  the 
respective  experts  have  restricted  it,  seems  to  be  utterly 
insoluble.  But  it  ceases  to  be  so  from  the  moment 
they  leave  this  narrow  domain  and  take  cognisance  of 
the  supreme  legal  phenomenon  of  the  law  of  property 
and  of  its  different  possible  forms.  Not  till  then  can 
they  state  more  clearly  the  terms  of  the  question  at 
issue,  and  acquire  a  wider  conception  of  the  different 
contingent  ways  in  which  the  problem  may  some  day 
be  solved. 

In  this  preface  I  have  done  little  more  than  indicate 
a  few  examples.  They  will  be  more  fully  developed  in 
the  essays  which  I  have  collected  together  in  the  present 
volume.  They  will,  I  hope,  serve  to  show  the  value  of 
the  function  which,  even  in  the  biological  and  sociological 
sciences,  the  theorist  may  exercise  in  questions  which, 
from  their  very  generality  and  importance,  emerge 
from  the  necessarily  restricted  domain  of  the  specialist. 


THE    R6LE  OF  THE  THEORIST  27 

I  hope  that  they  will  be  followed  by  an  increasingly 
cordial  and  intimate  collaboration  between  specialists 
and  theorists,  the  former  ever  following  with  interest 
the  work  of  the  latter,  borrowing  new  ideas  to  test,  and 
new  directions  to  give  to  their  own  researches  ;  the 
latter,  in  their  turn,  obtaining  from  the  former  an 
unfailing  supply  of  facts  and  of  insight  into  things,  of 
the  greatest  value  for  fixing  and  consolidating  their 
own  views  or  for  suggesting  new  ideas  and  new  systema- 
tizations.  Such  an  intimate  and  cordial  collaboration 
will,  in  a  remarkable  manner,  enable  the  failings  of  the 
one  to  neutralize  the  failings  of  the  other,  and  of  itself 
will  lead  to  a  very  rapid  development  of  the  biological 
and  sociological  sciences,  which  at  the  present  moment 
demand,  even  more  than  the  physico-chemical  sciences, 
this  very  work  of  co-ordination  and  synthesis. 


II 


THE  SYNTHETIC  VALUE  OF  THE  EVOLUTION 
THEORY 

THE  theory  of  biological  evolution  or  the  transforma- 
tion of  species  has  always  exercised  a  powerful  attraction 
upon  minds  of  the  synthetic  order.  No  other  theory, 
perhaps,  has  succeeded  in  bringing  into  one  general 
survey  so  many  disparate  phenomena,  and  in  co- 
ordinating in  one  complete  complex  the  numerous 
individual  theories  which  hold  their  own  in  widely 
differing  branches  of  science,  and  which,  at  first  sight, 
seem  to  have  nothing  in  common.  It  is  just  this 
synthetic  power  of  the  evolution  theory  in  the  sphere 
of  biology  that  I  propose  to  throw  into  relief  in  the 
following  pages. 

It  is  a  matter  of  common  knowledge  that  the  French 
zoologist  Lamarck,  at  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  was  the  first  to  propound  a  complete  theory 
of  the  transformation  of  species. 

He  suggested  that  continual  change  of  environment 
leads  to  change  in  the  requirements  of  living  animals, 
and  that  the  change  of  effort  made  to  satisfy  the  new 
requirements  produces  in  each  species  appropriate 
morphological  modifications. 

As  these  modifications  are  transmitted  to  descendants, 

38 


SYNTHESIS  AND  EVOLUTION  29 

and  as  the  modifications  acquired  by  each  generation 
are  added  to  those  acquired  by  its  predecessors,  it 
follows  that  each  species  must  be  gradually  transformed 
into  another  species,  and  that  in  this  way  we  may 
suppose -all  living  species  to  have  been  evolved. 

It  would  take  too  long  to  dwell  on  the  reasons  why 
this  theory  was  not  welcomed  as  it  deserved  by  the 
scientific  world  of  the  day.  Perhaps  the  time  was  not 
yet  ripe  for  it.  It  is  certain  that  the  preponderating 
influence  of  Cuvier,  who  obstinately  clung  to  the  doc- 
trine of  the  fixity  of  species,  was  responsible  for  the 
opposition.  Lamarck's  theory  was  much  discredited 
by  the  misinterpretation  of  his  assertion  that  effort, 
and  therefore  the  will,  was  the  cause  of  transformation. 
Many  gave  to  this  statement  a  metaphysical  inter- 
pretation, as  if  the  species  themselves  consciously 
proposed  or  decided  upon  their  own  transformation, 
although  the  author  very  clearly  speaks  in  numerous 
passages,  and  almost  in  the  very  terms  we  use  to-day, 
of  the  trophic  and  atrophic  action  of  the  use  and  disuse 
of  the  organs  and  of  the  transmission  of  the  effects  of 
that  use  and  disuse.  But  what  did  his  doctrine  most 
harm  of  all,  and  rightly  so,  was  the  insufficiency  of 
facts  in  support  of  his  theory. 

For  these  or  other  reasons,  Lamarck's  theory,  which 
attributed  to  the  transmissibility  of  the  acquired 
morphological  modifications  the  essential  role  in  the 
evolution  of  species,  while  it  scarcely  mentioned  natural 
selection  except  in  a  few  vague  and  unimportant  sen- 
tences, remained  for  a  long  time  almost  ignored. 

Darwin's  famous  volume  on  the  origin  of  species, 
which  appeared  towards  the  middle  of  the  last  century, 


30        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

was  welcomed  at  once  by  the  majority  of  his  scientific 
contemporaries,  and  in  a  short  time  absorbed  the 
attention  of  the  scientific  world. 

It  was  certainly  an  advantage  for  Darwin  to  have 
at  his  disposal  in  support  of  his  theory  the  whole  body 
of  English  experiments  in  artificial  selection  in  the 
plant  and  animal  worlds,  and  in  the  uninterrupted 
creation  of  new  varieties  from  a  few  initial  domestic 
races.  Further,  as  we  know,  Darwin  was  directly 
inspired  by  the  volume  which  the  economist  Malthus 
had  written  on  population.  Now,  this  book  had  given 
rise  to  the  bitterest  polemics,  and  one  result  had  been 
that  the  British  public  had  been  made  already  familiar 
with  the  ideas  of  the  struggle  for  existence  and  natural 
selection.  This  naturally  was  of  the  utmost  value  in 
the  diffusion  of  Darwin's  teaching. 

This  is  not  the  place  to  write  a  history  of  the  doctrine 
of  the  evolution  of  species.  It  is  sufficient  to  remember 
that  Darwin  did  not  deny  the  effects  of  use  and  disuse, 
but  as  factors  in  transformation  he  considered  them 
of  secondary  importance,  and  laid  stress  on  the  selective 
factor  alone.  And  thus  it  came  about  that  although 
Darwin  never  mentioned  the  name  of  Lamarck,  the 
French  zoologist  was  drawn  from  his  temporary  oblivion 
and  compared  to,  or  rather  contrasted  with,  the  English 
naturalist,  because  he  had,  on  the  contrary,  neglected 
the  selective  factor,  and  had  pronounced  the  one  only 
important  factor  to  be  the  transmissibility  of  acquired 
modifications. 

Through  this  antagonism  Lamarck  reaped  no  small 
advantage  from  the  notoriety  his  rival  had  obtained. 
Hence  arose  the  two  schools,  the  Neo-Lamarckians  and 


SYNTHESIS  AND  EVOLUTION  31 

the  Neo-Darwinians,  which,  as  we  know,  are  still  at 
daggers  drawn,  the  latter  holding  to  the  selective 
factor  only,  and  the  former  recognizing  exclusively  the 
factor  of  transmissibility. 

I  propose  to  show  how  the  evolution  theory,  either 
alone  or  aided  by  the  clash  of  Lamarckism  and  Darwin- 
ism, has  played  and  continues  to  play  a  role  of  syntheti- 
zation  on  a  scale  unrivalled  hitherto  by  any  other 
doctrine. 

To  start  with,  it  is  easy  to  see  that  the  mere  affirma- 
tion of  the  evolution  of  species  was  already  in  itself  a 
vast  synthesis,  independently  of  the  factor  selected  as 
of  most  importance  in  transformation. 

All  living  organisms  seemed  to  form  one  huge  family. 
Man,  the  darling  of  creation,  was  now  leaving  his  proud 
pedestal  to  descend  to  the  humble  level  of  the  other 
animals.  The  differences  between  animals  and  veget- 
ables, i.e.  between  the  beings  considered  to  be  animate 
and  those  considered  to  be  inanimate,  now  lost  in  their 
turn  all  appearance  of  true  diversity. 

Is  there  any  synthesis  of  the  inorganic  world  vast 
enough  to  be  compared  to  that  which  was  thus  accom- 
plished in  the  organic  world  by  the  evolution  theory  ? 
The  answer  must  probably  be  in  the  negative.  Even 
the  theory  of  universal  gravitation  has  not  yet  suc- 
ceeded in  embracing  under  one  and  the  same  aspect  all 
the  forces  of  the  physical  world  ;  the  forces  of  capil- 
larity, for  instance,  and  those  of  chemical  affinity  are 
as  yet  outside  its  sphere.  And  concerning  the  chemical 
elements,  we  are  only  now  scarcely  beginning  to  suspect 
that  they  are  so  many  varieties  or  modes  of  being  of 
one  and  the  same  substance. 


32        ESSAYS   IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

However,  when  the  first  blinding  glare,  so  to  speak, 
provoked  by  the  brilliance  of  so  powerful  a  synthesis 
had  faded  away,  men  began  to  observe  and  to  analyse 
the  content  of  this  new  doctrine.  This  patient  examina- 
tion sent  their  minds  in  widely  different  directions  to 
new  research  for  the  purpose  of  verifying  the  postulates 
or  the  most  important  and  immediate  deductions 
from  the  theory.  At  the  same  time  it  became  necessary, 
for  the  support  of  the  main  hypothesis,  to  create  sub- 
sidiary ulterior  hypotheses,  which,  being  all  attached 
to  the  vast  trunk  of  the  evolutionary  theory,  have  thus 
connected  one  with  another  the  most  divergent  branches 
of  the  whole  science  of  biology. 

It  will  suffice  to  select  a  few  of  the  most  characteristic 
examples.  Darwin  held  that  natural  selection  must 
be  exercised  on  the  quite  fortuitous  variations  pre- 
sented, not  only  by  individuals  of  the  same  species  or 
variety,  but  also  by  the  issue  of  the  same  pair  of  parents. 
Hence  attention  was  focused  upon  these  individual 
differences. 

Well !  it  is  difficult  to  imagine  the  importance  to 
biology  of  this  new  field  opened  to  observation  and 
research. 

Even  a  casual  notice  of  the  differences  which  dis- 
tinguish the  brothers  of  the  same  family  would  have 
been  sufficient  to  reveal  the  striking  phenomenon 
to  which  Galton  gave  the  name  of  "  particulate " 
inheritance — an  expression  which  may  be  rendered 
by  the  following  periphrasis :  the  autonomous  and 
isolated  inheritance  of  different  peculiarities. 

A  child,  for  example,  may  have  its  father's  eyes 
and  its  mother's  mouth.  Galton  concludes  that  these 


SYNTHESIS  AND  EVOLUTION  33 

two  characteristics  must  have  had  a  distinct  origin, 
and  that  the  causes  which  determined  their  appearance 
must  have  been  exercised  independently  of  each  other. 
The  phenomena  of  atavism,  the  characters  of  hybrids, 
the  facts  of  spontaneous  variation,  were  later  added  to 
the  trivial  observations  that  any  one  can  make  in  his 
own  household,  to  show  that  even  the  most  minute 
characteristics  may  appear  or  disappear,  may  vary, 
may  be  inherited  from  the  father  or  the  mother,  and 
each  quite  independently  of  the  rest,  i.e.  without 
seeming  to  have  any  relation  to  the  variability  or 
invariability  of  the  other  characteristics. 

So  striking  a  phenomenon  demanded  an  immediate 
explanation.  Preformist  germs  were  invoked.  It  was 
suggested  that  each  of  these  characteristics,  varying 
and  being  inherited  independently  of  the  rest,  was 
represented  in  the  mass  of  the  germ  or  seed  correspond- 
ing to  the  whole  organism  by  an  infinitely  small  germ 
or  seed,  distinct  from  the  infinite  number  of  germs  or 
seeds  belonging  to  the  other  characteristics.  Darwin's 
gemmules,  Galton's  germs,  the  pangenes  of  De  Vries, 
and  the  determinants  of  Weismann  are,  in  fact,  so  many 
different  names  given  to  these  preformist  germs. 

Thus  we  see  the  transformist  doctrine  caused  observa- 
tions to  be  brought  to  bear  upon  a  fact  which  has 
nothing  uncommon  about  it,  but  which  had  so  far  been 
completely  neglected  ;  and  this  observation  immedi- 
ately led  to  nothing  less  than  an  hypothesis  (the  ques- 
tion is  not  if  it  be  sound  or  unsound)  on  the  constitution 
of  the  germ. 

But  this  is  not  all ;  from  its  very  nature  the  pre- 
formist hypothesis  of  the  germ  led  inevitably  to  another 

3 


34         ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

still  more  remarkable  and  fruitful  hypothesis,  that  of 
Weismann  on  the  continuity  of  the  germ  plasm. 

Darwin,  in  fact,  admitted  that  each  cell  of  the  organ- 
ism, whether  developed  in  the  course  of  heredity  or 
acquired  after  the  development  of  the  individual  in 
consequence  of  some  new  functional  adaptation,  pro- 
duced its  own  gemmules,  and  that  these,  circulating 
afterwards  in  the  blood,  were  collected  in  the  repro- 
ductive organs  considered  as  simple  glands  of  reception 
and  emission  of  the  germinal  substance.  Galton  tried 
the  infusion  of  blood  from  one  breed  of  rabbits  into 
another,  and  finding  that  none  of  the  offspring  of  the 
latter  acquired  any  of  the  characteristics  of  the  former, 
he  proved  that  this  circulation  of  the  gemmules  has 
no  existence  in  fact. 

Hence  he  supposed  that  the  germ  plasm  is  formed 
of  an  infinite  number  of  different  gemmules,  each  of 
which  would  produce  an  infinite  number  of  other 
gemmules  similar  to  it  and  incorporated  with  it  in  the 
protoplasm.  At  the  beginning  of  the  development, 
only  a  small  number  of  this  innumerable  multitude  of 
gemmules  is  transformed,  each  into  a  cell,  and  takes 
part  in  the  formation  of  the  body  or  soma  ;  the  rest, 
which  Galton  called  the  stirp  or  stock,  sets  itself  aside, 
and  is  subsequently  utilized  in  the  constitution  of  the 
future  germ  plasm  of  the  new  organism. 

It  will  be  seen  that  this  hypothesis  is  in  the  main 
almost  identical  with  the  famous  hypothesis  of  the 
continuity  of  the  germ  plasm  which  Weismann  in  his 
turn  was  to  propound  as  the  result  of  further  more 
accurate  and  detailed  elaboration. 

We  need  not  be  surprised  at  the  interest,  I  might 


SYNTHESIS  AND  EVOLUTION  35 

almost  say  the  enthusiasm,  with  which  Weismann's 
hypothesis  was  received. 

As  far  as  the  development  of  organisms  is  concerned, 
the  biologist  had,  in  fact,  to  solve  the  problem  of  two 
deep  mysteries  :  how  the  microscopic  morsel  of  matter 
which  constituted  the  germ  plasm  could  determine 
in  its  smallest  details  an  organism  so  complex  as 
that,  for  instance,  of  a  vertebrate,  and  how  in  its 
turn  such  an  organism  could  form  anew  this  tiny 
morsel  of  matter  endowed  with  the  same  astonishing 
properties. 

The  hypothesis  of  the  continuity  of  the  germ  plasm 
accounted  for  the  second  of  these  great  mysteries.  It 
suggested  that  it  is  not  the  organism  that  forms  anew 
its  germ  plasm,  but  it  is  the  germ  plasm  which,  con- 
tinuing to  grow,  is  maintained  and  transmitted  from 
one  organism  to  another  without  qualitative  alteration, 
and  that  from  it  small  portions  are  one  after  the  other 
detached  to  form  successive  generations.  These  genera- 
tions are  not  mothers  and  daughters,  but  sisters. 

It  is  readily  imagined  what  a  ray  of  light  this  con- 
tinuity of  the  germ  plasm  was  to  throw  upon  the  mystery 
of  generation. 

Suppose,  for  instance,  we  have  two  very  complicated 
solutions,  each  in  chemical  equilibrium,  but  of  such  a 
nature  that  if  they  are  mixed  and  the  mixture  is  warmed 
at  a  given  temperature,  the  most  varied  and  complex 
reactions  are  produced  between  the  different  sub- 
stances. First  we  notice  certain  precipitates  of  a  cer- 
tain type,  and  then  others  of  a  different  type  ;  the 
precipitates  which  are  formed  the  first  will  perhaps 
later  disappear,  while  the  liquid,  colourless  at  first, 


36        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

may  become  coloured,  and  these  colours  may  give  rise 
to  other  colours,  and  so  on,  so  that  before  the  changes 
cease  the  liquid  has  passed  through  transformations 
of  the  most  varied  and  interesting  character. 

If  in  the  course  of  the  experiment  we  have  used  the 
whole  of  the  mixture,  it  will  be  hardly  possible  to  re- 
produce the  series  of  the  same  transformations.  After 
all  this  disturbance,  it  is,  in  fact,  hardly  possible  that 
the  liquid  will  now  return  to  its  initial  condition,  because 
that  would  require  such  an  aggregate  of  fortuitous 
favourable  circumstances  that  its  probability  must  be 
regarded  as  infinitely  small.  And  if  a  chemist  were  to 
show  us  that  nevertheless  this  is  what  really  does 
happen,  that,  if  we  take  a  portion  of  the  liquid  which 
has  already  been  through  its  very  complicated  series 
of  transformations,  we  find  it  identically  repeats  them, 
the  fact  will  appear  to  us  so  surprising  and  so  inexplic- 
able that  we  shall  be  amazed  and  perplexed. 

But  light  breaks  in  when  some  one  shows  us  that 
we  have  been  duped,  that  the  liquid  which  repeats  the 
series  of  transformations  is  not  the  liquid  we  used  at 
first,  which  had  gone  through  the  series  of  transforma- 
tions and  returned  to  its  primitive  condition,  but  on 
the  contrary  that  it  is  another  portion  of  the  original 
mixture  which  has  been  hidden  away,  and  is  now  for 
the  first  time  heated  by  our  juggling  chemist  to  the 
same  temperature  as  the  former  portion. 

The  doctrine  of  the  continuity  of  the  germ  plasm  has 
had  the  effect  of  a  similar  ray  of  light  piercing  through 
deep  shadows,  and  this  is  sufficient  to  explain  the 
immediate  interest  it  aroused  and  the  enthusiasm  with 
which  it  was  received. 


SYNTHESIS  AND  EVOLUTION  37 

But  what  is  the  unforeseen  consequence  of  this 
theory  ? 

If  the  rest  of  the  protoplasm,  which  remains  after  the 
tiny  portion  has  been  separated  for  the  purpose  of 
forming  the  new  being,  is  lying  latent  in  the  soma  and 
remains  unaltered  until  the  moment  it  is  to  form  the 
sexual  cells  of  the  now  adult  organism,  then  the  modifi- 
cations, whatever  they  are,  which  the  latter  must 
undergo,  i.e.  the  characters  acquired  after  birth  by 
the  individual  as  the  result  of  some  new  functional 
adaptation,  will  not  affect  the  protoplasm.  That,  at 
any  rate,  is  the  conclusion  which  seems  to  hold  good. 
And  therefore  these  acquired  characters  are  not  trans- 
missible to  following  generations. 

So  we  see  how  Neo-Darwinism  or  Weismannism 
came  into  existence.  It  absolutely  repudiates  that 
transmissibility  which  was  the  essence  of  the  teaching 
of  Lamarck,  and  which  Darwin  himself  confessed  must 
be  accepted,  although  he  considered  it  of  secondary 
importance.  Neo-Darwinism  is  thus  compelled  to  give 
to  natural  selection,  the  other  factor  in  evolution,  an 
exclusive  role. 

The  extreme  importance  thus  attributed  to  the 
struggle  for  existence  and  to  natural  selection,  the  wide 
diffusion  of  the  brilliant  essays  and  vigorous  polemics 
of  so  great  a  dialectician  and  so  formidable  an  antagonist 
as  Weismann,  and  the  considerable  prominence  they 
gave  to  his  theory,  had  an  immediate  effect  in  the 
domain  of  social  science  as  well  as  in  that  of  histological 
biology.  Thus  it  was  that  one  and  the  same  synthetic 
bond  united  certain  phenomena  of  cells  and  tissues 
to  the  analogous  phenomena  of  human  societies. 


38         ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

The  sociologists  will  tell  us  that  it  is  not  only  the 
individuals  of  different  species  that  engage  in  a  struggle 
for  existence.  Every  homogeneous  group  of  individuals 
also  struggles  for  existence,  or  for  a  greater  intensity 
of  existence,  against  every  other  group,  equally  homo- 
geneous, but  different  from  the  first.  So  the  struggle 
of  the  brute  against  the  brute  throws  a  sinister  light 
on  the  Marxian  struggle  of  classes.  And  it  is  no  longer 
the  different  homogeneous  groups  alone  that  are  engaged 
in  the  struggle,  but  the  social  groups  themselves,  which, 
even  if  heterogeneous,  nevertheless  for  territorial  or 
other  reasons  constitute  distinct  units.  War,  vital 
competition  between  peoples,  the  birth  and  decline  of 
civilizations,  and  social  evolution  as  a  whole  thus 
appear  to  Kidd,  the  Neo-Darwinian  sociologist,  as 
so  many  aspects  and  so  many  consequences  of  the 
universal  struggle  for  existence  and  of  natural  selection 
between  societies. 

And,  as  Wilhelm  Roux  will  tell  us,  the  struggle  for 
food  is  not  only  between  individuals  but  between  all 
the  different  parts  of  the  body  of  the  individual  The 
different  organs  of  the  same  organism,  the  different 
tissues  of  the  same  organ,  the  different  cells  of  the  same 
tissue,  and  the  different  parts  of  the  same  cell  are  all 
engaged  in  this  mutual  struggle. 

Thus  the  atrophy  and  hypertrophy  of  organs,  tissues, 
and  cells  are  also  in  their  turn  reduced  to  episodes  and 
to  different  aspects  of  the  Darwinian  struggle  for 
existence. 

We  see  that  Roux's  doctrine  of  the  struggle  between 
the  parts  of  the  organism  at  once  involves  a  generaliza- 
tion of  the  idea  of  the  living  being.  It  is  not  only  the 


SYNTHESIS  AND  EVOLUTION  39 

organism  that  is  alive,  but  every  organ  is  alive,  every 
tissue,  every  cell,  and  even  the  minutest  parts  of  the 
cells.  Thus  emerges  the  idea  that  minute  portions 
of  homogeneous,  amorphous,  and  apparently  structure- 
less substances  may  be  endowed  with  life  ;  and  we  are 
thus  led  to  inquire  :  What  is  life  ?  what  are  the  charac- 
teristics according  to  which  we  assign  to  a  given  mass 
of  substance,  large  or  small,  the  epithet  "  living  "  ? 

This  question,  the  most  fundamental  in  biology,  the 
very  problem  of  the  essence  of  life,  joins  in  this  manner 
with  the  other  no  less  fundamental  question — thrown 
into  relief  by  the  doctrine  of  the  struggle  for  ex- 
istence— of  the  irresistible  tendency  of  life  to  extend 
itself  beyond  the  limits  assigned  to  it  by  the  conditions 
of  the  moment.  On  the  other  hand,  this  irresistible 
tendency  of  life  to  expansion  explains  how  so  frail  a 
flame  still  burns  in  the  world  in  spite  of  the  innumerable 
dangers  that  threaten  its  existence. 

It  is  needless  to  remark  that  this  simple  question. 
What  is  life  ?  is  the  incessant  stimulus  to  all  physio- 
logists ;  it  spurs  them  on  in  their  researches,  although 
they  are  still  so  uncertain  of  the  direction  they  should 
follow  that  they  seem  to  be  merely  groping  amid  the 
deep  shadows  of  the  great  mystery.  And  transformism 
in  its  turn  gives  a  new  and  powerful  impulse  to  these 
researches.  If  it  allows,  in  fact,  an  ascent  from  the 
most  perfect  species  to  the  earliest  of  all,  to  simple 
unicellular  types,  to  the  very  simple  infinitesimal 
monads,  why  place  a  limit  to  this  bold  ascent,  and  not 
go  farther  and  pass  from  the  organic  to  the  inorganic  ? 

All  researches  and  theories  on  the  chemical  ferments, 
on  organic  ferments,  on  colloids  the  whole  of  organic 


40         ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

and  physiological  chemistry  in  general,  thus  receive  a 
fresh  impulse  to  the  eager  desire  to  discover  that  passage 
from  the  inorganic  to  the  organic,  the  possibility  or 
impossibility  of  which  is  the  subject  of  the  age-long 
struggle  between  vitalists  and  materialists. 

The  assertion  that  the  struggle  for  existence  is  the 
sole  factor  in  evolution  must  give,  as  we  have  seen, 
great  importance  to  those  individual  fortuitous  varia- 
tions which  constitute,  so  to  speak,  the  raw  material 
on  which  selection  is  exercised. 

Research  into  these  hereditary  variations  which 
depend  on  amphimixis  receives  a  stimulus  which,  on 
the  one  hand  leads  to  the  discovery  of  the  pheno- 
menon of  particulate  inheritance  and  to  the  theoretical 
consequences  I  have  examined  above,  and  on  the  other 
raises  the  question  of  the  significance,  or  of  the  why 
and  wherefore,  of  sexual  reproduction.  It  is  asserted 
that  sexual  reproduction  is  in  itself  a  cause  of  great 
variability,  for  children,  as  we  have  seen,  in  very  different 
ways  and  proportions  inherit  at  random  the  charac- 
teristics of  their  parents,  or  of  maternal  or  paternal 
ancestors.  Weismann  even  goes  so  far  as  to  see  the 
whole  raison  d'etre  of  sexual  reproduction  in  this  multi- 
plication of  individual  variability  to  which  it  would 
give  rise.  The  discussions  which  have  taken  place 
on  this  subject  throw  into  relief  the  as  yet  unsolved 
problem  of  the  nature  or  role  of  fertilization.  Thus 
they  give  the  opportunity  for  a  closer  investigation 
of  the  relations  existing,  particularly  in  unicellular 
organisms,  between  fertilization  or  conjugation  on 
the  one  hand  and  the  phenomenon  of  rejuvenation 
on  the  other.  They  suggest,  moreover,  to  Loeb  his 


SYNTHESIS  AND  EVOLUTION  41 

interesting  experiments  on  artificial  fertilization,  in 
which  the  action  of  the  spermatozoid  is  replaced  by 
that  of  certain  chemical  substances,  and  parthenogenetic 
developments  are  produced  in  species  in  which  this 
mode  of  reproduction  never  takes  place  in  normal 
conditions. 

These  hereditary  variations  depending  on  amphi- 
mixis give  in  particular  a  great  impulse  to  all  research 
on  crossings  in  general  and  on  the  hybrids  derived 
therefrom,  with  the  object  of  establishing  the  possibility 
of  creating  new  species.  Minute  observations  on  hybrids 
lead  in  their  turn  to  the  discovery  of  certain  numerical 
laws,  known  as  Mendel's  and  Galton's  laws,  relative 
to  the  manner  in  which  the  characteristics  belonging 
to  each  of  two  crossed  species  or  varieties  appear  in 
the  offspring  and  in  the  succeeding  generations.  And 
these  numerical  laws,  which  require  for  their  explana- 
tion the  calculus  of  probabilities,  afford  to  mathematics 
its  opportunity  of  making  an  unpretentious  entrance 
upon  the  scene. 

At  the  same  time,  these  numerical  laws  of  hybrid 
inheritance,  because  of  this  very  interpretation  provided 
by  the  laws  of  probability,  also  contribute  to  the  pro- 
gress of  research  in  the  problem  of  fertilization,  and 
even  open  up  new  lines  of  investigation  in  this  subject. 

Here  the  field  of  research  is  extended  in  the  most 
unexpected  manner. 

Research  has  already  begun  and  discussion  has  opened 
on  the  respective  degrees  of  importance  to  be  awarded, 
in  the  hereditary  transmission  of  characters  of  the 
species,  to  the  egg  and  the  spermatozoid,  to  the  proto- 
plasm and  the  nucleus.  Experiments  have  been  made 


42         ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

on  the  fertilization,  by  the  spermatozoid  of  one  species, 
of  the  enucleated  protoplasm  of  an  egg  of  another 
species  ;  on  the  fertilization  of  an  •  egg  by  two  or  more 
spermatozoids  of  a  different  species ;  on  the  develop- 
ment of  isolated  blastomeres,  from  which  the  biologists 
have  succeeded,  by  the  aid  of  these  multiple  fertilizations 
of  the  egg  and  of  the  subsequent  triple  or  quadruple 
first  segmentation,  in  taking  away  a  certain  number  of 
chromosomes  ;  and  so  on. 

We  find  as  the  outcome  of  all  these  experiments  that 
the  importance  to  be  attributed  to  the  chromosomes 
of  the  egg  and  of  the  spermatozoid  in  relation  to  heredi- 
tary transmission  goes  on  steadily  increasing.  It  is 
known  that  the  chromosomes  are  met  with  not  only  in 
the  egg  and  in  the  spermatozoid  but  also  in  all  the  other 
cells.  They  are,  in  fact,  the  famous  rods  in  which  the 
nucleus  is  collected  and  divided  immediately  before 
the  cellular  division,  and  which,  each  splitting  longi- 
tudinally at  the  moment  of  the  division,  are  doubled 
in  number  and  are  subsequently  divided  in  equal 
proportion  between  the  two  daughter-nuclei.  These 
chromosomes,  as  we  know,  vary  in  number  with  the 
species,  but  are  constant  £or  each  species,  i.e.  are 
always  in  equal  number  in  the  cells  of  all  the  tissues 
of  the  body,  the  egg  and  spermatozoid  not  excepted 
before  they  are  mature. 

It  is  not  yet  known  in  what  this  maturation  consists. 
Some  light  may  be  thrown  upon  the  subject  by  the 
new  process  known  as  synapsis,  discovered  and  studied 
during  the  last  few  years,  in  which  the  chromatin,  i.e. 
the  substance  of  which  the  chromosomes  of  the  mature 
egg  or  spermatozoid  are  later  constituted,  goes  through 


SYNTHESIS  AND  EVOLUTION  43 

the  strangest  and  most  mysterious  evolution.  Does 
this  phenomenon  of  synapsis  mean  that  the  real  and 
appropriate  germinal  substance  penetrates  from  with- 
out into  the  cell  which,  previously  simply  somatic, 
now  first  becomes  really  germinative  ?  And,  going 
back  to  a  convenient  modification  of  an  old  hypothesis 
due  to  Darwin,  does  what  we  call  the  maturation  of 
the  reproductive  cells  consist  in  this  reception  of  the 
germinal  substance,  produced  at  some  point  of  the 
soma  exterior  to  the  sexual  organs  ? 

The  fact  is  that  after  synapsis  both  the  egg  and  the 
spermatozoid  undergo  two  successive  cellular  divisions, 
one  of  which  is  called  the  reducing  division,  because 
it  reduces  the  number  of  the  chromosomes  possessed 
by  the  egg  and  the  spermatozoid  to  exactly  half  the 
normal  number.  It  might  be  said  that  the  object  of 
this  reducing  division  is  to  secure  that  the  normal 
number  of  chromosomes  remains  unaltered  in  the 
fertilized  egg  when  the  male  and  female  nuclei  are 
brought  into  contact  by  fertilization. 

Now,  when  the  egg  has  been  fertilized  by  a  sperma- 
tozoid of  different  species,  it  sometimes  happens  that 
the  chromosomes  of  the  two  species  which,  during  the 
act  of  fertilization,  have  apparently  blended  to  form  a 
nucleus  in  the  state  of  repose,  reproduce  themselves, 
when  the  first  segmentation  of  the  egg  begins,  in  such  a 
manner  that  those  of  one  group  reappear  distinct  from 
those  of  the  other  in  size,  shape,  or  other  character, 
each  group  retaining  the  characteristics  of  the  species 
from  which  it  springs.  At  other  times  the  chromosomes 
of  the  two  species  never  fuse,  and  retain,  even  during 
and  after  fertilization,  their  form  of  rods,  each  group 


44 

keeping  the  characters  of  its  species,  in  this  case  more 
easily  than  in  the  former.  In  both  cases,  we  can  follow 
these  distinct  chromosomes  in  the  blastomeres  to  which 
the  first  segmentations  of  the  egg  give  rise.  Some 
investigators  nowadays  give  themselves  considerable 
trouble  in  trying  to  discover  if  it  is  possible  to  find  the 
traces  of  the  two  varieties  of  chromosomes  in  the  egg 
or  in  the  spermatozoid  emitted  by  the  hybrid.  They 
hope  that  if  it  were  possible,  in  spite  of  the  disturbance 
due  to  synapsis,  to  follow  the  behaviour  of  these  varieties 
of  chromosomes  in  the  reducing  division  which  takes 
place  at  the  end  of  the  maturation  of  this  egg  or  of 
this  spermatozoid,  it  would  throw  much  light  on  the 
numerical  laws  of  Mendel  and  Galton  to  which  I 
have  referred. 

This  hope  implies  two  suppositions  which  are  opposed 
to  other  suppositions  perhaps  more  likely  to  be  true. 

In  the  first  place,  it  implies  the  hypothesis  that  it  is 
not  at  the  moment  of  maturation,  nor  from  any  region 
of  the  soma  external  to  them,  that  the  sexual  cells 
receive  their  germinal  substance,  but  that  it  is 
received  directly  from  the  egg  in  the  course  of 
successive  divisions. 

In  the  second  place,  it  implies  a  tendency  to  attri- 
bute undue  importance  to  the  size,  shape,  and  in  general 
to  the  external  appearance  of  the  chromosomes.  This, 
in  fact,  suggests  that  as  long  as  the  external  appearance 
remains  the  same,  the  internal  chemical  composition 
of  the  chromosomes,  on  which  will  evidently  depend 
all  the  fundamental  physiological  properties,  must  in 
its  turn  remain  identical.  But  the  external  form  is 
probably  nothing  but  an  ordinary  framework  deter- 


SYNTHESIS  AND  EVOLUTION  45 

mined  in  shape  and  size  by  the  quite  accessory  circum- 
stances of  the  cells,  on  the  surface  and  within  the 
interior  of  which  are  laid  down  the  specific  substances, 
infinite  in  number  and  of  the  most  variable  chemical 
composition,  of  which  such  a  complex  mixture  as 
chromatin  in  the  living  state  is  composed — a  mixture 
which  has  so  far  defied  chemical  analysis.  It  is  in  just 
the  same  way  that  in  galvanoplastics,  the  same  object, 
keeping  its  shape  and  size  unaltered,  may  be  covered 
at  will  by  a  layer  of  one  metal  or  another  according 
to  the  particular  metallic  salts  in  the  bath  into 
which  it  is  plunged.  And  so,  too,  in  electric  accumu- 
lators, the  same  plates  serve  as  a  framework  on 
which  are  deposited  the  different  substances  which 
are  capable  of  charging  them. 

That  is  why,  even  when  the  two  original  forms  of 
the  chromosomes  were  found  in  the  cells  of  the  tissues 
of  adult  hybrids,  we  could  not  infer,  with  the  opponents 
of  nuclear  somatization,  that  the  nucleus  remains 
germinal  and  therefore  identical  in  all  the  somatic 
cells  of  the  organism.  At  most  it  would  mean  that 
what  is  maintained  from  nucleus  to  nucleus  without 
variation  is  just  that  framework,  upon  which  would 
be  deposited  the  most  widely  different  specific  sub- 
stances of  the  chromatin,  differing  from  one  nucleus 
to  another. 

But  all  these  objections,  to  which  I  have  but  referred 
en  passant,  and  which  give  little  support  to  the  hope 
expressed  above,  are  relatively  unimportant  to  the 
thesis  set  forth  in  these  pages.  Even  if  all  these  inter- 
esting and  often  original  researches,  carried  into  the 
deepest  intricacies  of  the  microscopic  and  ultra-micro- 


46         ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

scopic,  should  not  be  crowned  with  the  expected  success, 
they  would,  no  doubt,  give  other  results,  probably 
unexpected,  but  perhaps  even  of  greater  importance. 
In  this  labyrinth  of  researches  the  priceless  thread  of 
Ariadne  will  always  have  been  the  fact  of  the  variation 
which  biological  heredity  undergoes  in  consequence  of 
amphimixis  and  crossings,  the  fact  on  which  the  theory 
of  transformation  first  fixed  the  attention. 

Weismann's  principle  of  natural  selection  considered 
as  the  unique  factor  in  evolution  is,  however,  exposed 
to  old  and  new  objections  which  as  time  goes  on  do  not 
become  less  formidable.  The  polemics  on  this  subject— 
of  which  the  first  and  the  most  brilliant,  which  took 
place  between  Weismann  and  Herbert  Spencer,  has 
remained  famous — have  shaken  the  almost  universal 
assent  to  that  non-transmissibility  of  acquired  characters 
which  Weismann  propounded,  and  which  most  people 
accepted  as  an  implicit  consequence  of  the  doctrine  of 
the  continuity  of  the  germ  plasm. 

The  difficulties  met  with  by  natural  selection  when 
it  claims  to  explain  the  wonderful  structures  of  certain 
tissues  and  the  conformation  of  certain  organs  and 
groups  of  organs  so  well  adapted  to  their  functions, 
lead  to  an  ever-closer  study  of  the  nature  and  modes 
of  manifestation  of  functional  adaptation  and  bring 
to  the  front  the  importance  of  co-ordinated  variations. 

The  objection  that  natural  selection  could  not  come 
into  play  in  the  case  of  insignificant  fortuitous  individual 
variations  led  De  Vries  to  study  the  phenomena  of 
mutations,  i.e.  of  certain  sudden  and  very  marked 
variations  which  produce  at  a  stroke  real  new  species. 

The    sporadic    character    of    this    phenomenon,    the 


SYNTHESIS  AND  EVOLUTION  47 

important  part  that  the  phenomena  of  atavism  seem 
to  play  in  it,  and  the  slight  importance  that  can  thus  be 
attributed  to  it  as  a  factor  of  evolution,  induce  other 
thinkers  to  prefer  the  orthogenetic  doctrines  of  Nageli 
and  Eimer  on  the  tendency  of  the  germinative  plasma, 
which  according  to  Weismann  is  always  continuous, 
gradually  to  become  modified  by  its  own  internal  con- 
ditions, and  thus  to  give  rise  to  a  corresponding  phylo- 
genetic  evolution,  equally  independent  of  the  direct 
action  of  the  environment  in  the  Lamarckian  sense 
and  of  its  indirect  action  in  the  Weismannian  sense. 

But  as  these  doctrines  in  their  turn  are  incapable 
of  explaining  how  this  evolution,  determined  exclusively 
by  internal  forces,  could  eventually  form  organisms 
so  well  adapted  to  their  own  environment  and  to  their 
respective  functions,  we  are  faced  anew  with  this 
dilemma,  which  is  now  more  boldly  presented  :  either 
natural  selection  alone,  or  a  co-operation,  as  a  powerful 
factor  of  evolution,  with  the  transmissibility  of  acquired 
characters.  This  dilemma  thus  clearly  stated,  and  the 
now  shattered  faith  in  the  exclusive  principle  of  natural 
selection,  lead  even  the  most  hostile  to  pay  to  Lamarck's 
principle  a  more  friendly  attention. 

Observations,  experiments,  and  arguments  in  favour 
of  this  principle  are  rapidly  increasing  in  number. 
Light  begins  to  dawn  as  soon  as  men  become  persuaded 
that  a  collective  scientific  aberration  has  excluded  a 
principle  which  in  itself  throws  a  dazzling  light  on  all 
the  most  fundamental  problems  of  transformation, 
and  without  which  little  can  be  explained. 

But  side  by  side  with  this  persuasion,  which  con- 
tinued to  grow  stronger  and  more  general,  there  also 


48         ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

grew  up  a  kind  of  uneasy  feeling  that  the  question  of 
the  mechanism  of  this  transmissibility  was  going  to 
be  a  formidable  problem.  This  problem,  this  enigma, 
proved  to  be  the  inner  and  powerful  impulse  which, 
avowed  or  not,  conscious  or  unconscious,  feverishly 
urged  a  whole  legion  of  workers  to  follow  on  the  lines 
of  Wilhelm  Roux,  and  to  take  up  the  whole  series  of 
observations  and  experiments  comprised  under  the 
name  of  the  "  mechanics  of  the  development  of 
organisms." 

The  long-standing  and  fundamental  dispute  between 
the  preformist  theories,  according  to  which  each  part 
of  the  embryo,  however  small  it  may  be,  carries  within 
it  all  the  elements  necessary  for  the  determination  of 
its  future  development,  and  the  epigenetic  theories, 
according  to  which  the  development  of  each  part  depends 
on  that  of  all  the  rest,  the  quarrels  about  nuclear  soma- 
tization,  or  the  existence  of  preformist  germs,  which 
is  directly  or  indirectly  connected  with  it,  became  more 
vigorous  than  ever,  because  the  mechanism  of  trans- 
missibility must  be  imagined  in  quite  different  ways 
for  each  of  these  cases. 

Experiments  on  the  isolation  and  displacement  of 
the  blastomeres  ;  the  production  of  half-embryos  ;  the 
production  of  two  or  more  distinct  organisms  or  of 
double  monsters  from  a  single  egg ;  the  production 
of  a  single  organism  from  two  or  more  blastulas  which 
have  fused,  and  each  of  which  could  have  formed  a 
separate  organism  ;  graftings  of  portions  of  embryos, 
taken  from  all  parts  of  the  body  and  of  different  sizes, 
on  to  other  embryos  or  on  to  adults  of  the  same  or 
of  different  species  ;  all  kinds  of  amputations  for  the 


SYNTHESIS  AND  EVOLUTION  49 

study  of  the  phenomena  of  regeneration  and  of  hetero- 
morphosis ;  the  artificial  production  of  all  kinds  of 
teratological  organisms :  all  this  vast  body  of  activity, 
varied  in  every  possible  manner,  finds  its  immediate 
and  guiding  thread  in  the  settling  of  the  debate  between 
the  preiormist  and  epigenetic  theories,  and  their  final 
aim  is  the  search  for  some  indication  or  clue  which  will 
disclose  the  mechanism  by  means  of  which  can  be 
transmitted  to  offspring  those  characters  which  the 
parent  organism  may  have  acquired  after  its  develop- 
ment, and  in  consequence  of  some  new  functional 
adaptation. 

I  may  here  be  permitted  to  state  that  this  immense 
collection  of  experimental  results,  a  whole  series  of 
which  tells  dead  against  preformism,  while  yet  another 
series  is  no  less  decidedly  opposed  to  epigenesis,  seems 
to  be  rather  in  favour  of  a  centro-epigenetic  hypothesis, 
due  to  the  author  of  these  pages,  according  to  which  the 
development  of  each  part  would  depend,  not  on  that 
of  all  the  other  parts  of  the  soma,  but  rather  on  the 
continuous  action  which  the  germinal  substance, 
situated  in  a  well-defined  zone  of  the  latter  known 
as  the  central  zone,  would  exercise  over  the  rest  of  the 
organism  during  the  whole  course  of  development ; 
and  that  this  hypothesis  may  of  itself  be  capable  of 
furnishing  the  longed-for  explanation  of  the  mechan- 
ism of  the  transmissibility  of  acquired  characters. 

Meanwhile,  the  most  minute  observations  on  the 
mode  of  succession  of  the  different  embryonic  stages 
in  all  kinds  of  species  increase  continually  in  number 
and  variety  as  a  consequence  of  these  investigations 
into  the  mechanics  of  development,  and  throw  into 

4 


50 

bolder  relief  the  wonderful  phenomenon  of  the  recapitu- 
lation of  phylogenesis  by  ontogenesis. 

This  phenomenon,  discovered  by  Fritz  Miiller, 
but  more  particularly  developed  by  Haeckel,  and 
generally  known  by  the  name  of  Haeckel' s  fundamental 
biogenetic  law,  had  always  been  considered  one  of  the 
soundest  arguments  in  favour  of  transformism,  but  it 
now  assumes,  in  the  light  thrown  upon  it  by  the  hypo- 
thesis of  the  transmissibility  of  acquired  characters,  a 
new  aspect  of  first  importance — the  aspect  of  a  phen- 
omenon which  is  mnemic  in  its  nature. 

Haeckel  himself,  and  Butler,  and  Orr,  and  Cope  will 
ask,  What  is  this  repetition,  however  abridged,  of  the 
phylogenetic  stages  during  ontogenesis,  if  it  is  not  a 
sign  that  the  living  substance  remembers  all  the  stages 
through  which  the  species  has  passed  in  consequence 
of  the  continuous  acquisition  of  the  new  characters 
which  have  in  succession  been  added  to  the  old  ? 

And  that  is  how,  in  spite  of  the  obscurity  of  the 
hypothesis  implied  in  the  question  as  stated,  the  path 
was  already  smoothed  for  another  still  more  synthetic 
and  more  remarkable  outlook  which  we  owe  to  Hering. 
The  author  himself  expounded  it  for  the  first  time  in 
1870,  in  a  celebrated  lecture  to  the  Academy  of  Vienna, 
the  title  of  which  was :  Ueber  das  Gedfichtniss  als 
eine  allgemeine  Funktion  der  organisirten  Materie,  accord- 
ing to  which  memory  is  the  general  and  fundamental 
function  of  all  living  substance.  This  brilliant  synthetic 
view,  which  Semon  made  his  own  in  a  work  which 
appeared  in  1904  under  the  title  :  Die  Mneme  als 
erhaltendes  Prinzip  in  Wechsel  des  organischen  Gescheh- 
ens,  was  more  widely  developed  by  basing  it  upon  a 


51 

very  numerous  series  of  facts  disclosing  the  profound 
analogies  which  exist  between  biological  phenomena 
in  general  and  those  of  biological  development  in 
particular,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  phenomena  of 
memory  properly  so  called  on  the  other. 

All  can  realize  what  an  imposing  synthesis  of  biology 
and  psychology,  i.e.  of  two  of  the  five  master  branches 
into  which  the  whole  of  human  knowledge  may  be 
divided,  is  represented  by  this  affirmation  of  profound 
and  unsuspected  analogies  between  the  vital  phenomenon 
in  general  and  the  mnemic  phenomenon,  enabling  us 
to  conceive  of  the  latter  as  the  fundamental  substratum 
and  the  inner  essence  of  the  former. 

Cellular  specialization,  by  which  each  cell,  even 
when  stimulated  by  unwonted  stimuli  differing  from 
the  normal  stimulus,  answers  in  its  usual  manner  ; 
the  transmissibility  of  acquired  characters  ;  the  innate 
instincts  of  the  animals  ;  all  psychic  phenomena,  what- 
ever they  are,  from  the  simplest  to  the  highest  forms 
of  memory,  such  as  logical  reasoning  itself,  which  is 
but  a  complex  memory  :  all  these  phenomena,  owing 
to  the  mnemic  substratum  revealed  in  each,  seem  to 
be  different  forms  of  one  and  the  same  fundamental 
phenomenon. 

And  assimilation,  the  principal  characteristic  pro- 
perty of  the  vital  phenomenon,  what  is  it  then,  it  may 
be  asked,  but  an  essential  mnemic  phenomenon  ?  In 
fact,  this  living  substance,  being  continuously  destroyed 
during  the  so-called  processes  of  disassimilation,  of 
waste,  of  organic  destruction,  which  accompany  the 
organic  activity,  this  substance  which  later  is  repro- 
duced during  the  so-called  period  of  functional  repose, 


52        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

of  organic  reconstitution,  of  assimilating  synthesis, 
always  identical  with  itself,  always  ready  to  reproduce 
by  further  decompositions  the  same  specific  functional 
activities — does  not  it,  too,  and  for  precisely  the  same 
reason,  appear  to  be  attributable  to  a  phenomenon 
mnemic  in  nature  ?  And  further,  we  see  that  it  is 
precisely  because  assimilation  begins  to  be  itself  a 
mnemic  phenomenon  that  all  vital  phenomena  are 
also  mnemic  in  nature. 

But  here  a  fresh  and  formidable  question  presents 
itself.  The  comparison  of  the  vital  phenomenon  in 
general  with  the  mnemic  phenomenon,  in  spite  of  the 
profound  analogies  which  have  been  discovered,  must 
of  necessity  appear  to  be  artificial,  even  if  it  is  not 
reduced  to  an  innocent  metaphor,  if  we  do  not  know 
what  in  reality  is  the  mnemic  phenomenon  properly 
so  called.  As  the  latter,  the  ordinary  psychic  memory, 
belongs  to  a  category  of  phenomena  more  particular 
and  more  complex  than  the  vital  phenomenon — for  every 
phenomenon  of  psychic  memory  is  certainly  a  vital 
phenomenon,  although  the  converse  is  not  true — how 
can  the  mnemic  phenomenon  throw  any  light  upon  the 
vital  phenomenon  ? 

But,  notwithstanding,  the  analogies  and  the  com- 
parison appear  more  and  more  legitimate.  Here, 
then,  we  are  compelled  to  ask  ourselves  if  these  two 
phenomena,  the  vital  and  the  mnemic  properly  so 
called,  cannot  rather  be  both  explained  by  a  third 
elementary  hypothetical  phenomenon,  more  general 
and  more  simple,  of  which  they  would  be  only  two 
aspects  or  two  particular  cases.  It  is  easy  to  grasp 
the  whole  importance  of  this  hypothesis,  of  an  elemen- 


SYNTHESIS  AND  EVOLUTION  53 

tary  phenomenon  which  would  serve  as  a  basis  for  all 
biological  phenomena,  in  making  a  little  clearer  to  our 
minds  the  great  mystery  of  life. 

I  cannot  in  this  chapter  stay  to  consider  the  most 
likely  answers  that  the  future  progress  of  biological 
science  may  give  to  this  question,  or  to  all  the  other 
fundamental  questions  to  which  I  have  referred,  and 
which  still  await  explanation.  My  task  has  been  to 
show  that  the  transformist  doctrine  sheds  a  powerful 
light  around  it,  and  that  it  is  a  stimulus,  a  keen,  con- 
tinual, incessant  stimulus,  urging  us  day  by  day  further 
and  further  forward  towards  new  researches  and  new 
conceptions. 


Ill 

BIOLOGICAL    MEMORY    IN    ENERGETICS 

I 

THE  CENTRO-EPIGENETIC  HYPOTHESIS  OF  DEVELOPMENT 

BEFORE  passing  on  to  the  consideration  of  the  questions 
of  a  very  general  order  and  of  fundamental  importance 
which  are  raised  by  biological  memory,  it  will  be  well, 
to  fix  the  ideas,  to  recall  and  to  sum  up  as  briefly  as 
possible  my  centro-epigenetic  hypothesis  of  development, 
which  in  essence  is  based  on  this  biological  memory. 
And  here,  considering  the  object  of  this  summary, 
and  for  the  sake  of  brevity,  I  may  be  permitted  to 
invert  the  order  I  have  followed  in  the  volume  in  which 
the  hypothesis  is  fully  developed,1  so  that  I  shall  first 
of  all  state  what  the  hypothesis  is  and  then  proceed 
to  prove  it  through  the  more  fundamental  facts  of 
development,  at  any  rate  as  far  as  is  possible  in  the 
limited  space  at  my  disposal. 

The  essential  part   of  my  centro-epigenetic   theory 
may  be  summed  up  in  the  following  statements  : 

1  Eugenic  Rignano,  La  transmissibilitt  des  caracteres  acquis.  Hypo- 
thtse  d'une  centro-dpigdn&se,  Paris,  F.  Alcan,  1906 ;  Italian  edition, 
Bologna,  Zanichelli,  1907  ;  German  edition,  Leipzig,  Engelmann,  1907  ; 
English  edition,  Chicago,  The  Open  Court  Publishing  Company,  1911, 

54 


BIOLOGICAL  MEMORY  55 

The  action  to  which  the  process  of  development  is 
due  irradiates  from  a  special  zone  of  the  embryonic 
organism  called  the  central  zone  of  development, 
constituted  by  the  germinal  substance. 

This  formative  action  is  due  to  the  successive  modes 
of  being  of  the  system  of  distribution  or  circulation  of 
trophic  nervous  energy,  constituted  by  all  the  nuclear 
excitations  or  discharges  simultaneously  active  in  the 
different  cells  of  the  embryo.  These  nuclear  discharges 
meet  along  the  intercellular  protoplasmic  bridges, 
compositions  and  decompositions  of  the  respective 
currents  taking  place  in  turns  ;  the  resulting  system  of 
nervous  circulation  thus  penetrates  the  whole  organism 
at  each  stage  of  its  development,  and  at  each  moment 
gives  rise  to  its  complex  morphologico-physiological 
state. 

The  germinal  substance  contained  in  the  nucleus  of 
the  fertilized  egg  consists  of  a  large  number  of  "  specific 
potential  elements  "  ;  that  is  to  say,  of  a  large  number 
of  elementary  accumulators  of  nervous  energy,  each  of 
which  is  capable,  as  they  are  discharged,  of  giving 
rise,  not  to  a  generic  activation  of  this  nervous  energy, 
as  electric  accumulators  do  for  electric  energy,  but  to 
the  activation  of  one  and  only  one  specific  mode  of 
being  of  this  nervous  energy.  These  specific  potential 
elements  activate  successively,  one  after  another,  from 
the  beginning  to  the  last  term  of  the  development. 

Every  nervous  current,  every  nervous  excitation, 
whether  it  is  directly  derived  from  a  single  nucleus  or 
from  the  composition  or  decomposition  of  several 
nuclear  currents  or  excitations,  on  subsequently  cross- 
ing any  other  nucleus  whatever  of  the  soma,  deposits 


56  '      ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

therein  a  "  specific  accumulation  "  of  itself ;  that  is 
to  say,  it  deposits  a  substance  that  is  capable,  as  it 
decomposes,  of  accurately  and  exclusively  regenerating 
the  specificity  of  the  nervous  current  or  excitation  by 
which  it  was  deposited.  Every  nucleus,  even  if  somatic, 
may  thus  be  formed  by  numerous  elementary  accumu- 
lators in  every  way  similar  in  nature  to  those  of 
the  germinal  nuclei,  but  specifically  distinct  from  the 
latter,  and  also  specifically  distinct  from  one  somatic 
nucleus  to  another. 

The  germinal  specific  potential  elements,  contained 
in  the  nucleus  of  the  fertilized  egg,  are  integrally  trans- 
mitted from  nucleus  to  nucleus  by  the  qualitative 
equality  of  the  nuclear  division.  But  in  the  nuclei, 
which  in  the  course  of  development  remain  ultimately 
outside  the  aforesaid  central  zone,  and  which  there- 
fore belong  to  the  cells  which  are  destined  for  histo- 
logical  specialization,  are  progressively  added  fresh 
somatic  potential  elements,  by  means  of  the  process 
of  deposition  already  referred  to.  These  specific  soma- 
tic potential  elements,  increasing  in  number  and  mass, 
eventually,  for  reasons  of  space  and  of  nutrition,  replace  . 
gradually  and  completely  the  germinal  elements,  thus 
giving  rise  to  nuclear  somatization  in  the  proper  sense 
of  the  words. 

If  this  be  granted,  let  us  note  how  development  will 
proceed,  beginning  with  the  first  segmentation  of  the 
fertilized  egg. 

By  means  of  the  qualitative  equality  of  the  nuclear 
segmentation,  the  nuclei  of  the  different  blastomeres 
will  all  be  equal  and  will  be  equal  to  the  nucleus  of 
the  fertilized  egg  from  which  they  come,  and  they  will 


BIOLOGICAL  MEMORY  57 

remain  so,  at  any  rate  in  the  morula  and  even  in  the 
blastula  stages.  All  these  nuclei  will  thus  be  equally 
adapted — especially  if  the  respective  blastomeres  coming 
from  holoblastic  eggs  are  also  equal  to  one  another — 
to  undertake  the  same  plasmatic  action,  each  beginning 
to  set  in  action  the  same  series  of  specific  energies. 

But  the  time  soon  comes  when  the  new  specific 
excitations,  being  on  the  point  of  activation,  are  ready 
to  determine  an  ontogenetic  modification,  which  no 
longer  can  be  uniform  for  all  points  of  the  blastular 
spherical  surface,  as  it  would  be,  for  example,  in  the 
case  of  an  invagination.  The  activation  of  the  remain- 
ing nuclear  energies  can  no  longer  therefore  take  place 
in  the  same  way  for  all  the  blastomeres.  At  this 
moment  such  of  the  nuclei  as  possess,  either  in  conse- 
quence of  having  had  the  chance  of  better  nourishment 
or  for  some  other  accidental  reason,  a  quantity  of 
potential  energy  superior  in  however  small  a  degree  to 
that  of  the  rest  (or,  in  meroblastic  eggs,  those  favoured 
with  respect  to  the  rest  in  some  way  or  other  by  their 
position)  will  necessarily  have  an  advantage  over  the 
latter,  and  will  continue  alone  the  activation,  checked 
in  the  others,  of  the  successive  specific  energies,  which 
at  the  outset  had  been,  on  the  contrary,  activated 
simultaneously  by  all  the  blastomeric  nuclei  without 
distinction. 

From  this  moment  the  rest  of  the  nuclei,  thus  remain- 
ing outside  the  central  zone  of  development,  and  hence- 
forth dependent  on  those  that  constitute  that  zone, 
gradually  become  more  and  more  differentiated  and 
somatized  ;  for  they  will  be  continually  traversed  by 
specificities  of  nervous  trophic  energy,  successively 


58        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

different  and  differing  from  nucleus  to  nucleus,  accord- 
ing to  the  system  of  general  nervous  circulation  which 
at  each  moment  will  be  determined  by  the  correspond- 
ing activity  of  the  central  zone. 

In  fact,  every  fresh  specific  potential  element  acti- 
vating in  the  nuclei  henceforth  constituting  the  central 
zone  will  disturb  the  dynamic  equilibrium  of  the 
general  system  of  nervous  distribution  which  has  just 
been  constituted  by  the  activation  of  the  preceding 
specific  potential  element,  and  will  thus  provoke  the 
transition  to  a  new  dynamical  equilibrium  relative  to 
the  following  stage  of  development. 

As  the  germinal  elements  of  the  central  zone  thus 
come  into  action  in  succession,  the  development  of  the 
organism  will  pass  through  its  different  successive 
stages,  and  the  action  will  cease  only  when  the  germinal 
elements  have  all  been  activated.  Now  at  this  point 
will  cease  every  disturbing  influence  of  the  central  zone 
on  the  dynamic  equilibrium  of  each  ontogenetic  stage, 
and  in  this  way  the  organism  reaches  a  state  of  definitive 
equilibrium — of  "  stationary  "  equilibrium,  as  Ostwald 
would  say — of  the  adult  state. 

Just  as,  however,  up  to  this  point,  the  disturbing 
action  of  the  central  zone  was  continually  breaking 
the  barely  formed  equilibrium,  and  was  thus  pro- 
voking the  transition  to  a  posterior  ontogenetic  stage, 
so  now,  the  organism  having  reached  the  adult  stage, 
every  non-ephemeral  change  of  this  or  that  external 
stimulus  or  of  the  complex  of  external  stimuli,  every 
lasting  change  of  the  general  action  exercised  by  the 
environment  on  the  organism — to  each  of  which 
changes  it  will  also  react  with  a  different  functional 


BIOLOGICAL  MEMORY  59 

activity — will  end  in  a  fresh  disturbance  of  the 
dynamical  equilibrium,  which  otherwise  would  have 
been  henceforth  definitive,  and  in  this  way  it  will 
provoke  the  transition  to  a  new  morphologice- 
physiological  state,  which  will  constitute  the  next 
phylogenetic  stage. 

Each  of  these  phylogenetic  morphologico-physio- 
logical  states  will  in  turn  give  birth,  in  the  point  of 
the  organism  occupied  by  the  germinal  substance,  to 
a  single  nervous  current  or  excitation,  the  specificity 
of  which  will  be  a  function  and  expression  of  the  general 
system  constituted  by  the  infinite  number  of  nervous 
currents  or  excitations  simultaneously  active  in  all  the 
nuclei  of  the  organism.  This  resulting  nervous  current 
or  excitation  will  thus  be  the  representative  current  or 
excitation  of  this  phylogenetic  stage. 

Each  of  the  successive  phylogenetic  states  will  then 
have  had,  relatively  to  the  germinal  substance  remain- 
ing at  the  same  point  of  the  organism,  its  own  represen- 
tative current,  and  each  of  these  representative  currents 
will  have  in  its  turn  left  in  the  germinal  substance 
itself  a  characteristic  specific  accumulation,  representa- 
tive of  the  corresponding  phylogenetic  state,  and  ready 
in  every  new  ontogenesis  to  restore  the  specific  current 
thus  accumulated.  It  will  therefore  be  sufficient  to 
suppose  that  the  germinal  substance  is  always  at  the 
same  point  of  the  organism  both  when  it  receives  and 
accumulates  these  representative  currents  and  when 
it  restores  them  unchanged  at  each  new  ontogenesis, 
so  that  the  organism  in  process  of  development  may 
again  pass — more  or  less  summarily  according  to  the 
degree  of  conservation  of  the  respective  representative 


60         ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

accumulations — through  all  the  morphologico-physio- 
logical  stages  already  traversed  by  the  species  in  its 
evolution  ;  just  as  it  is  sufficient  for  a  single  point  of 
the  membrane  of  a  phonograph  to  pass  through  all  the 
stages  through  which  it  passed  when  the  membrane 
received  a  given  series  of  loud  vibrations,  for  the  whole 
membrane  itself  to  repeat  the  extraordinary  compli- 
cated modes  of  being  at  first  provoked  by  the  external 
world,  and  now  reproduced  by  the  sole  action  of  this 
single  internal  point. 

The  fundamental  biogenetic  law  of  the  ontogenetic 
recapitulation  of  phylogenesis  would  thus  be  the  im- 
mediate consequence  of  the  process  of  the  trans- 
missibility  of  acquired  characters. 

Such  in  its  fundamental  features  is  the  centro-epi- 
genetic  hypothesis  which,  as  I  have  already  pointed 
out,  must  now  be  confronted  with  the  facts. 

Pfeffer's  celebrated  experiments  on  the  reformation 
of  the  cellular  membrane,  even  in  the  fragments  of 
enucleated  cells,  provided  that  they  are  connected  by 
the  protoplasmic  bridges  with  other  cells  or  portions 
of  nucleated  cells,  lead  to  the  conclusion  that  where 
intercellular  protoplasmic  unions  exist,  the  different 
discharges  or  currents  of  the  several  nuclei  flow  together 
along  the  respective  protoplasmic  unions  and  thus  give 
rise  to  a  circulation  of  nuclear  energy  throughout  the 
whole  network  of  these  protoplasmic  connections.  The 
universality  of  these  connections  in  every  cell  of  any 
kind  of  tissue,  both  in  the  adult  state  and  at  any  period 
whatever  of  development,  beginning  with  the  original 
blastomeres,  leads  to  the  conclusion  that  this  circulation 
of  nuclear  energy  extends,  at  every  instant  of  develop- 


BIOLOGICAL  MEMORY  61 

ment  as  well  as  of  the  adult  stage,  to  the  whole  of  the 
organism,  and  penetrates  to  its  minutest  recesses. 

Siegfried  Garten  had  a  disc  of  skin  of  10  mm.  radius 
cut  from  his  arm,  and  then  had  this  repeated  when  the 
wound  was  quite  covered  with  new  epithelium  with  the 
exception  of  a  minute  disc  of  1*75  mm.  radius.  This 
experiment  fully  confirmed  the  suggestion  of  a  circu- 
lation of  nuclear  energy  through  the  clustered  network 
of  the  intercellular  bridges.  The  circulation  of  nuclear 
energy,  in  fact,  which  at  first  passed  through  the  intra- 
cellular  filaments  and  intercellular  bridges  of  the  cells 
situated  on  the  removed  disc,  finding,  when  once  the 
disc  was  gone,  that  its  previous  paths  were  blocked, 
must  have  been  compelled  to  pass  round  the  wound, 
thus  increasing  the  quantity  of  nuclear  energy  of  this 
zone.  According  to  that,  around  the  little  circle  of 
1 75  mm.  which  remained  uncovered,  one  saw  in  the 
microscope  an  annular  layer  of  large  cells  in  which  the 
protoplasmic  filamentation  was  extraordinarily  de- 
veloped both  in  number  and  in  thickness,  and  in  which 
alone  appeared  nuclear  divisions.  The  growth  of  the 
thickness  and  of  the  number  of  protoplasmic  unions 
thus  denoted  an  increase  in  the  circulation  of  nuclear 
energy  ;  and  the  nuclear  divisions,  in  their  turn  the 
sign  of  quicker  nuclear  and  cellular  proliferation, 
denoted  that  this  increase  of  circulation  had  exer- 
cised a  trophic  action  in  the  annular  zone  it 
traversed. 

The  last  fact  is  very  interesting,  for  it  enables  us  to 
refer  immediately  to  differences  in  the  quantity  of  this 
nuclear  energy  in  circulation  all  differences  in  the  speed 
of  growth  which  are  to  be  met  with  either  in  the  different 


points  of  the  same  tissue  or  in  the  different  tissues  of 
the  same  organism. 

The  following  brief  considerations  will  suffice,  in  their 
turn,  to  make  it  sufficiently  probable  that  the  nature 
of  these  nuclear  energies  is  really  the  same  as  that  of 
the  nervous  currents  or  discharges.  In  the  unicellular 
organisms,  among  the  direct  or  indirect  effects  of  these 
nuclear  stimuli  there  are  some  which  are  manifested 
in  the  form  of  contractions  of  the  vibrating  cilia  and 
of  resulting  movements.  These  vibratory  cilia  are 
seen  from  many  points  of  view  to  be  of  the  same 
nature  as  the  intercellular  protoplasmic  bridges,  and,  so 
to  speak,  their  substitutes.  In  the  higher  animals, 
whose  movements  at  the  adult  age  are  caused  without 
the  slightest  possible  doubt  by  nervous  energy,  these 
movements  begin,  however,  from  the  earliest  embryonic 
stages,  when  they  are  nothing  but  a  simple  mass  of  a 
few  blastomeres,  as  we  infer  from  all  those  organisms 
whose  eggs  develop  freely  in  water,  and  which  begin 
to  swim  as  soon  as  the  blastula  and  gastrula  stages 
are  reached.  And,  as  we  all  know  now,  even  plants 
present  phenomena  of  sensitiveness,  of  transmission  of 
stimuli,  of  motility,  and  other  phenomena  which  if 
presented  in  animals  would  be  unhesitatingly  classed 
as  nervous  phenomena.  As  plants  have  no  nervous 
system,  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  term,  these  phenomena 
can  be  attributed  only  to  the  excitations  of  somatic 
nuclei  and  to  their  transmission  through  the  intercellular 
protoplasmic  bridges. 

Garten's  experiment,  as  we  have  seen,  confirms  the 
hypothesis,  which  attributes  to  simple  differences  in 
the  quantity  of  trophic  nervous  nuclear  energy  all  the 


BIOLOGICAL  MEMORY  63 

differences  in  speed  of  growth  which  are  observed  at 
different  points  of  this  or  that  tissue.  On  the  other 
hand,  as  has  been  well  put  by  Wilhelm  Roux,  develop- 
ment is  nothing  but  "  a  succession  of  unequal  localiza- 
tions of  growth."  An  infinite  variety  of  forms  is 
produced  by  means  of  the  most  monotonous  system 
possible  :  the  coming  into  action  of  the  proliferation 
of  a  cellular  layer  at  a  given  point  more  than  at  neigh- 
bouring points,  so  that  the  surplus  cells  thus  formed 
may  be  compelled  to  evaginate  or  invaginate.  This 
shows  that  the  system  of  trophic  nervous  circulation 
continues  to  be  modified  during  development  by  the 
unceasing  activation  of  some  factor  of  disturbance. 

The  involutive  ontogenetic  processes,  such  as  the 
involution  of  the  tail  of  the  tadpole,  in  which  there  is 
physiological  atrophy  of  the  embryonic  tissues ;  the 
phenomena  of  the  correlation  of  development  in  which 
given  parts  of  the  embryo,  even  if  remote  from  each 
other  and  having  between  them  no  functional  correla- 
tion, always  simultaneously  slacken  or  hasten  their 
development ;  the  compensating  growths  to  which 
Ribbert  has  paid  particular  attention,  in  which  ablation 
during  the  development  of  the  one  half  of  a  double 
organ  not  yet  functioning,  such  as  a  testicle  or  a  lacti- 
ferous gland,  provokes  a  further  growth  of  its  com- 
panion :  not  only  do  all  these  facts  confirm  this  general 
circulation  of  trophic  nervous  energy,  but  in  this  circu- 
lation they  find,  and  for  the  first  time,  their  explanation. 

The  well-known  researches  of  Francis  Darwin  on  the 
movement  of  plants,  which^have  led  him  to  affirm 
substantial  identity  between  the  temporary  variations 
of  form,  or  movements,  and  the  definitive  variations, 


64        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC   SYNTHESIS 

or  morphological  changes,  corroborate  the  hypothesis 
that  the  latter  changes,  just  like  the  movements,  depend 
on  the  disturbances  of  the  nervous  circulation  provoked 
by  particular  discharges  of  this  energy. 

At  the  same  time  a  whole  series  of  facts  revealing 
the  most  intimate  co-operation  of  the  ontogenetic  and 
the  physiological  functional  stimulus,  and  therefore  the 
contingent  substitution  of  one  for  the  other  (as  happens, 
for  instance,  in  the  latest  stages  of  the  development  of 
the  eye),  are  in  favour  of  the  identity  of  their  nature 
and  in  favour  of  the  idea  that  the  former  is,  in  short, 
nothing  but  a  reproduction,  by  internal  causes,  of  the 
latter,  this  being  provokable  only  by  external  factors. 

The  centro-epigenetic  hypothesis,  finally,  reconciles 
in  one  harmonious  whole  the  very  numerous  and  appar- 
ently contradictory  facts  which  have  made  biologists 
propound  the  three  famous  and  more  or  less  inter- 
dependent dilemmas,  of  nuclear  somatization  or  non- 
somatization,  of  the  existence  or  non-existence  of 
preformist  germs,  of  the  epigenetic  or  preformist  nature 
of  development. 

Thus,  as  far  as  the  first  of  these  three  dilemmas  is 
concerned,  experiments  on  the  isolation  and  on  the 
displacement  of  blastomeres,  on  the  formation  of  double 
monsters  from  a  single  egg,  or  of  a  single  embryo  from 
the  fusion  of  two  blastulas,  on  the  reformation  of  com- 
plete organisms  from  fragments  of  hydra  and  fragments 
of  Begonia  leaves,  all  appeared  to  be  in  favour  of  non- 
somatization  or  nuclear  non-specialization. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  opponents  of  nuclear  non- 
somatization  mainly  insist,  apart  from  other  less  impor- 
tant arguments,  on  this  :  that  the  nucleus  is  the  part, 


BIOLOGICAL  MEMORY  65 

or  the  organ,  upon  which  in  the  main  depends  the 
specificity,  or  the  various  specificities,  of  the  physio- 
logical phenomena  of  the  cell  itself,  and  that  therefore 
histologically  different  cells  can  be  conceived  of  only 
if  provided  with  specifically  different  nuclei.  In  fact, 
a  moment's  thought  shows  us  that  if  nuclear  somatiza- 
tion  be  abandoned,  it  would  follow  that  the  nuclei  of 
the  nervous  centres  are  all  equal  to  each  other  and 
equal  to  the  nuclei  of  the  other  tissues. 

Now,  centro-epigenesis  disposes  of  this  dilemma  as 
follows  :  as  we  have  already  seen,  nuclear  divisions 
would  take  place  by  a  process  of  qualitatively  equal 
division,  but,  as  development  went  on,  somatic  elements 
would  be,  in  the  nuclei  of  the  cells  remaining  outside  the 
central  zone,  gradually  added  to  the  germinal  elements 
inherited  by  each  nucleus  in  the  process  of  this  qualita- 
tively equal  division ;  and  these  somatic  elements, 
solely  by  the  growth  of  their  number  and  mass,  would 
be  gradually  taking  the  place  of  the  germinal  elements, 
owing  to  reasons  of  space  and  nutrition.  But  this 
substitution  in  the  lower  animal  organisms  and  in  some 
vegetable  tissues,  owing  to  the  simplicity  of  their 
somatic  functions,  would  never  be  complete  ;  so  that 
certain  of  their  somatic  nuclei  would  continue  to  retain 
their  germinative  faculty. 

As  far  as  the  second  dilemma  is  concerned,  that  of 
the  existence  or  non-existence  of  preformist  germs, 
there  is  here  again  a  whole  series  of  facts  and  arguments 
which  seem  to  militate  in  favour  of  the  existence  of 
these  germs,  and  another  body  of  facts  and  arguments 
which  seem  to  prove  the  contrary. 
The  phenomena  of  mixed  heredity,  from  father  and 

5 


66        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

mother ;  the  phenomena  of  atavism  ;  the  characters 
of  hybrids ;  Mendelian  heredity ;  all  phenomena,  in 
a  word,  of  participate  inheritance,  concur  in  show- 
ing that  even  the  minutest  characteristics  of  the 
organisms  may  be  hereditary,  independently  of  the 
rest.  Whence  the  imperative  necessity,  according  to 
Galton,  De  Vries,  and  Weismann,  of  admitting  the 
existence  of  preformist  germs  which  would  be  in  rela- 
tion to  the  respective  separately  transmissible  charac- 
teristics, just  as  the  complex  germ  is  in  relation  to  the 
whole  of  the  organism. 

On  the  other  hand,  apart  from  the  fact  that  every 
cell  and  even  every  fragment,  however  small,  of  a  cell 
must  then  have  its  own  determinant  or  preformist 
germ,  a  little  reflection  shows  that  it  is  impossible  to 
explain  the  phenomena  of  particulate  inheritance  by 
these  preformist  germs,  unless  at  the  same  time  we  admit 
that  the  germs  are  united  in  a  rigid  structure,  which  is 
exactly  what  Weismann  maintains.  Now  this  rigid 
structure  is  quite  incompatible  with  the  capacity 
possessed  by  the  germinative  plasm  of  indefinite  division 
producing  equal  germinative  plasms.  Besides,  the 
great  elasticity  of  which  the  embryonic  organism  gives 
us  proof  in  adapting  itself  to  eventually  new  conditions 
of  development,  and  the  whole  vast  field  of  teratology, 
both  natural  and  artificial,  demonstrate  the  possibility 
of  the  formation  of  an  infinite  number  of  morphological 
characteristics,  which  certainly  could  not  be  represented 
in  the  egg  by  any  preformist  germ. 

Now  the  centro-epigenetic  hypothesis  presents  in 
its  germinal  specific  potential  elements  preformist  germs 
sui  generis,  which,  while  possessing  the  properties 


BIOLOGICAL  MEMORY  67 

required  in  preformist  germs  properly  so  called,  do  not 
lend  support  to  any  of  the  formidable  objections  which 
prevent  us  from  admitting  the  existence  of  the  latter. 
Instead  of  being  the  determinants  or  the  representatives 
of  each  of  the  parts  of  the  organism,  they  would  be  the 
determinants  or  representatives  of  each  ontogenetic 
stage  in  its  whole  :  determinants  or  representatives  of 
each  ontogenetic  stage  solely  from  the  fact  that  each, 
activating  after  all  its  predecessors,  would  find  the 
organism  in  a  given  mode  of  being  corresponding 
to  the  immediately  preceding  ontogenetic  state,  and 
therefore  would  provoke  its  transition  to  the  immedi- 
ately posterior  stage. 

Hence  is  derived  the  most  complete  elasticity  left 
to  the  embryo  for  its  adaptation,  with  teratological 
forms,  to  conditions  of  development  differing  from 
ordinary  conditions,  and  at  the  same  time  is  derived 
the  possibility  of  the  phenomena  of  particulate  inherit- 
ance. For  many  of  these  germinal  specific  potential 
elements,  especially  those  related  to  the  last  onto- 
genetic stages,  if  they,  owing  to  their  very  peculiar 
specificity,  are  capable  of  acting  sensibly  only  on  certain 
already  specialized  parts  of  the  soma,  will  acquire  by 
this  alone  the  property  of  determining  even  entirely 
local  and  particular  somatic  variations. 

Finally,  we  come  to  the  third  and  last  dilemma, 
partly  independent  and  entirely  distinct  from,  and 
partly  depending  on  the  second,  just  considered  ;  it 
may  be  stated  in  the  following  terms  :  Has  each  portion 
of  the  embryo  in  itself  all  that  is  necessary,  apart  from 
nourishment,  to  determine  its  subsequent  development ; 
or,  on  th«  contrary,  is  the  development  of  each  part 


68         ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

of  the  embryo  determined,  not  by  causes  internal  to 
that  part,  but  by  the  actions  and  reactions  that  all 
parts  of  the  organism  exercise  on  each  other,  during 
the  whole  course  of  development  ? 

Now,  the  regeneration  pure  and  simple  of  amputated 
organs,  and  especially  certain  particular  cases  of  regener- 
ation, place  beyond  a  doubt  the  epigenetic  nature  of 
development.  But  a  whole  series  of  other  facts  appear 
on  the  contrary  to  show  directly  the  preformist  char- 
acter of  development.  Thus  the  half-embryos  of  the 
frog  in  Roux's  experiment,  and  the  experiments  of 
Born  on  the  grafting  of  portions  of  the  larvas  of  amphi- 
bians on  complete  larvas,  would  show  how  the  develop- 
ment of  certain  parts  of  the  organism  continues  without 
disturbance  and  in  a  perfectly  normal  manner,  even 
when  they  are  detached  and  isolated  from  the  rest. 
At  the  same  time  innumerable  teratological  facts  to 
be  found  in  nature  or  experimentally  provoked  show 
the  possibility  of  a  complete  check  to  the  development 
of  certain  parts  with  the  complete  development  of  the 
rest,  thus  showing  that  the  development  of  the  latter 
is  independent  of  that  of  the  former. 

Well,  if  it  is  admitted,  with  the  centro-epigenetic 
hypothesis,  that  the  formative  action  of  the  germinal 
plasm  irradiates  from  a  central  zone  of  development, 
it  is  clear  that  a  certain  independence  of  development 
can  and  must  subsist  between  the  parts  that  are  irrigated 
by  different  principal  ramifications  starting  from  this 
zone,  and  especially  that  it  will  be  enough  for  any  part 
of  this  zone  to  be  present  in  the  embryonic  fragment 
detached  from  the  rest  of  the  organism  to  make  that 
fragment  capable  of  development  on  its  own  account. 


BIOLOGICAL  MEMORY  69 

With  this  centro-epigenesis,  the  development  of 
multicellular  organisms  is,  in  short,  similar  to  that  of 
the  unicellular,  for  which,  as  we  learn  from  experiments 
in  merotomy  on  the  infusoria,  the  nucleus  functions 
as  a  genuine  and  characteristic  zone  of  the  development. 

The  above  experiments  of  Roux  and  Born,  the  con- 
nection revealed  between  the  check  to  the  development 
or  the  incomplete  regeneration  of  certain  parts  of  the 
organism,  and  the  atrophy  or  destruction  of  certain 
parts  of  the  spinal  cord,  and  other  facts  of  normal  or 
teratological  development,  seem  to  indicate  that,  in 
vertebrates,  for  instance,  this  central  zone  occupies 
quite  a  considerable  length  of  the  spinal  cord  :  probably, 
although  the  boundaries  are  naturally  not  clearly 
delimited,  it  is  situated  in  the  peri-ependymal  part  of 
the  spinal  cord. 

Hence  the  necessity  in  the  centro-epigenetic  hypo- 
thesis of  distinguishing  the  effective  from  the  apparent 
germinal  zone.  The  former,  constituted  by  the  central 
zone  itself,  must  be  the  real  seat  of  emission  of  the 
germinal  substance ;  the  latter,  constituted  by  the 
sexual  organs  or  glands — and  here  we  have  a  point  of 
contact  with  Darwin's  hypothesis — would  be  nothing 
but  the  place  of  reception,  elaboration,  and  re-emission 
of  the  germinal  substance  itself. 

Are  the  phenomena  of  what  we  call  the  "  matura- 
tion "  of  the  germinal  cells,  and  especially  those  of  the 
still  mj'sterious  "  synapsis,"  more  or  less  directly 
connected  with  this  phenomenon  of  reception  and 
arrangement  of  the  precious  material  within  the  cell 
it  has  penetrated  ?  can  these  phenomena  thus  find  the 
beginning  of  an  explanation,  and  will  they,  in  their  turn, 


70        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

bring  support  to  the  epigenetic  hypothesis  ? — these 
are  questions  which  we  cannot  here  discuss,  and  to 
which  time  alone  can  give  an  adequate  answer, 
which  in  any  case  would  be  premature  at  the  present 
stage  of  investigation.  The  mere  allusion  here  made 
to  them  will  have  sufficed,  we  hope,  to  complete  this 
rapid  sketch  of  the  centro-epigenetic  hypothesis,  before 
passing  on  to  the  questions  of  another  order  which  it 
raises. 


II 

NERVOUS   ENERGY   AND   ITS   MNEMIC   PROPERTY 

Having  thus  traced  the  broad  features  of  the  centro- 
epigenetic  hypothesis,  and  having  shown  its  agreement 
with  the  principal  facts  of  observation  and  experiment, 
I  have  now  to  show  its  connection  with  the  widest 
biological  questions,  and  with  certain  fundamental 
questions  of  organic  chemistry  and  energetics. 

We  know  how  the  phenomenon  of  the  recapitulation 
of  phylogenesis  by  ontogenesis — which  I  have  just 
derived  directly  from  the  centro-epigenetic  hypothesis- 
has  been  considered  from  the  outset  as  a  phenomenon 
of  mnemic  nature.  Starting  from  this  first  fact,  we 
have  been  gradually  led,  especially  by  the  work  of 
Hering  and  Semon,  to  make  of  memory  the  general 
and  fundamental  function  of  all  living  matter. 

This  drawing  together  of  ontogenesis  and  the  pheno- 
menon of  memory,  these  extensions  to  all  living  sub- 
stance in  general  of  this  mnemic  faculty,  although  based 


BIOLOGICAL  MEMORY  71 

on  certain  very  suggestive  analogies,  were  still  obscure 
in  their  nature,  and  could  not  as  yet  explain  any  of  the 
aforesaid  phenomena. 

Now  this  property  which  I  have  above  assumed  to 
exist  in  specific  potential  elements  both  germinal  and 
somatic,  and  which  is  the  corner-stone  of  the  centro- 
epigenetic  hypothesis,  constitutes  in  itself  a  real  mnemic 
faculty.  I  allude  to  the  property  by  which  the  sub- 
stance of  which  each  of  these  specific  potential  elements 
is  composed,  which  is  capable  of  giving  as  discharge  a 
single  well-determined  specific  nervous  current,  is  still 
one  and  the  same  substance  which  this  specific  nervous 
current,  when  it  acts  as  a  "  charging  "  current,  can 
in  its  turn  form  and  deposit.  The  specific  potential 
elements  thus  appear  to  be  genuine  and  character- 
istic mnemic  elements,  and  they  reveal  themselves 
as  the  well-defined  substratum  of  all  the  extremely 
varied  mnemic  manifestations  presented  by  organized 
matter. 

But  we  now  have  to  decide  if  such  a  property 
of  specific  accumulation  is  admissible  in  the  case  of 
living  substance.  And  in  that  connection  two  quite 
distinct  although  related  questions  at  once  appear : 
the  one  is  concerned  with  the  fact  of  the  existence 
of  specific  potential  energies,  apart  from  their  mode 
of  origin,  and  the  other  is  concerned  with  their 
mode  of  origin. 

The  first  question  is  seen  from  several  points  of 
view  to  be  connected  with  that  raised  by  Johannes 
Miiller  and  fully  developed  at  a  later  period  by  Hering. 
Hering's  theories — summed  up  and  propounded  anew  in 
his  address  to  the  Academy  of  Vienna  on  May  21,  1898, 


72        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

Zur  Theorie  der  Nerventhdtigkeit  —  admit,  however, 
perhaps  unnecessarily,  that  to  the  different  specificities 
or  respective  specific  accumulations  of  the  nervous 
energy  in  the  different  centres  should  also  correspond 
as  rr  any  specificities  of  the  ways  or  lines  of  transmission 
of  this  nervous  energy.  These  theories  of  Miiller  and 
Hering  later  received  the  support  of  Mach  in  his  Analyse 
der  Empfindungen,  and  again  in  his  later  work,  Erkennt- 
nis  und  Irrtum,  in  which  he  in  his  turn  explicitly  admits 
that  for  the  various  functional  activities  in  each  of  the 
respective  organs — from  each  gland  and  each  muscle 
to  the  different  organs  of  sense  and  the  different  points 
of  the  cerebral  cortex  itself — we  must  have  recourse 
to  as  many  accumulations  of  specific  energies,  which  it 
is  sufficient  merely  to  let  loose  (dedancher). 

But  once  specific  accumulations  are  admitted,  the 
other  question  presents  itself.  Can  each  be  formed  and 
deposited  by  that  very  specificity  of  energy  that  they 
are  now  capable  of  giving  by  their  discharge  ? 

It  seems  to  me  that  we  are  compelled  to  this  conclu- 
sion, if  the  ideas  most  commonly  accepted  by  biologists 
as  to  the  phenomenon  of  irritability  in  general  are 
associated  with  certain  conclusions  which  may  be 
drawn  more  particularly  from  psychomnemic  phenomena 
properly  so  called. 

On  the  one  hand  it  is,  in  fact,  admitted  that  the 
irritable  substance  is  "  a  system,  in  unstable  equilibrium, 
of  material  particles  provided  with  potential  energy 
at  high  tension  "  (Oscar  Hertwig),  and  the  majority 
also  admit — from  the  above-mentioned  theories  of 
Hering  and  Miiller  combined  with  those  of  Claude 
Bernard — that  the  different  energies  in  the  potential 


BIOLOGICAL  MEMORY  73 

state,  whose  respective  activations  constitute  the  differ- 
ent forms  of  irritability  of  the  living  substance,  repre- 
sent in  their  active  state  so  many  specific  modes  of 
being  of  one  and  the  same  elementary  phenomenon, 
characteristic  of  the  living  substance. 

On  the  other  hand,  apart  even  from  all  the  innumerable 
examples  which  go  to  show  that  the  physiological 
effects  of  our  recollections  are  identical  with  those  of 
real  sensations,  Wundt's  experiment  alone — in  which 
the  very  intense  mnemic  evocation  of  a  given  colour, 
while  we  look  fixedly  at  any  white  surface  or  figure, 
causes  the  appearance  of  the  complementary  colour — 
and  all  the  other  analogous  experiments  which  this 
later  suggested,  are  enough  to  show  what  Maudsley 
had  all  along  maintained,  that  the  remembrance  of  a 
sensation  is  nothing  but  the  reproduction  or  reactiva- 
tion of  the  very  identical  "  specific  "  current  which 
constituted  the  original  sensation. 

It  follows  that  the  specific  accumulation,  for  example, 
of  a  certain  sensorial  psychical  centre,  on  which  there- 
fore exclusively  depends  its  "  specific  irritability,"  is 
really  due  to  nothing  but  the  accumulation  made  in 
the  past  in  this  psychic  centre  of  the  same  specific 
nervous  current  which  it  can  now  give  as  a  current  of 
discharge,  and  which  at  that  time  on  the  contrary  acted 
as  a  current  of  charge. 

If  this  conclusion  is,  as  we  may  say,  self-imposed 
with  respect  to  real  psycho-mnemic  phenomena,  in 
which  the  fact  of  the  nervous  energy  produced  by  the 
discharge  of  the  respective  centre  appears  in  the  first 
rank,  while  the  physico-chemical  phenomena  accom- 
panying this  discharge  pass  to  the  second  rank,  then — 


74        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

conformably  with  the  fundamental  doctrine  of  Claude 
Bernard  just  referred  to,  as  to  the  essential  identity 
of  all  the  irritability  of  organized  matter,  and  taking 
into  fair  consideration  the  fact  that  memory  has  hence- 
forth been  generally  recognized  as  the  fundamental 
property  of  all  living  substance — we  are  justified  in 
also  admitting  it  in  the  case  of  real  physiological 
phenomena  properly  so  called,  in  which  there  are,  on 
the  contrary,  the  physicochemical  phenomena  of  irrita- 
bility (muscular  contraction,  glandular  secretion,  etc.) 
in  the  first  rank,  while  the  phenomena  of  a  nervous 
nature  which  equally  accompany  this  physiological 
reaction  or  function  pass  to  the  second  rank  or  even 
remain  quite  ignored. 

Here  a  third  question  crops  up  :  In  what  does  this 
"  accumulable  specificity  "  consist  ?  Although  at  the 
present  stage  of  investigation  there  will  be  many  who 
consider  it  premature  to  dwell  upon  this  question,  I 
cannot  refrain  from  doing  so,  even  if  it  be  only  for  the 
purpose  of  drawing  to  it  the  attention  it  deserves. 

There  are  certain  considerations  in  energetics  which, 
it  seems  to  me,  must  raise  at  least  a  vague  conjecture 
on  the  subject.  There  is  no  need  for  me  to  warn  the 
reader  that  in  the  following  pages  I  am  not  setting 
forth  an  hypothesis  properly  so  called,  firmly  estab- 
lished on  certain  facts,  but  am  rather  making  a  few 
simple  provisional  conjectures,  on  the  admissibility  or 
the  greater  or  less  suggestiveness  of  which  I  myself 
am  the  first  to  feel  the  need  of  having  the  advice  of  all 
who  have  studied  the  question. 

We  know  that  the  different  physical  energies  are 
represented  by  a  product  of  two  factors,  one  of  which 


BIOLOGICAL  MEMORY  75 

expresses  a  capacity  and  the  other  an  intensity  or  a 
potential.  Thus  the  capacity  factor  of  electric  energy 
is  given  by  the  quantity  of  electricity  measured  in 
coulombs  or  amperes,  and  the  intensity  factor  by  the 
potential  or  electromotive  force  measured  in  volts. 
If  we  admit  two  similar  factors  for  nervous  energy, 
can  the  specificity  of  the  different  nervous  currents  be 
in  some  way  related  to  the  capacity  factor  ? 

Let  us  note  that  in  electric  energy  the  capacity  factor 
represented  by  the  quantity  of  electricity  is  supposed 
to  be  constituted  of  elements  or  electrons  all  of  equal 
capacity  for  all  currents.  But  in  mechanical  energy, 
on  the  contrary,  this  same  capacity  factor,  represented 
by  mass,  is  supposed  to  be  constituted  of  elements 
or  molecular  masses  which  are  specific  for  different  sub- 
stances, i.e.  their  capacity  differs  with  each  substance. 

Now,  can  we  imagine  that  the  capacity  factor  of  the 
nervous  energy  is  also  subdivided  into  so  many  elemen- 
tary factors — which  we  may  call  "  nervous  electrons  " 
or  "  nervions  " — all  of  the  same  specific  capacity  for 
any  type  of  current  ?  If  that  be  so,  we  can  easily 
imagine  that  these  different  elementary  specific  capaci- 
ties can  be  determined  by  as  many  specificities  or 
modalities  of  action  of  the  physico-chemical  energies 
which  constitute  the  stimuli  of  both  the  external  or 
internal  environment.  In  other  words,  can  we  not 
conceive  of  the  nervous  current,  constituting  for  instance 
the  sensation  of  red,  or  the  evocation  of  that  sensation, 
as  formed  by  a  huge  number  of  elementary  discharges, 
or  "  nervions,"  of  given  capacity,  while  another  nervous 
current,  constituting  for  instance  the  sensation  of 
green,  or  the  evocation  of  that  sensation,  will  be  on  the 


76        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

contrary  constituted  by  other  elementary  discharges, 
by  another  sort  of  "  nervions,"  also  all  of  the  same 
capacity,  but  of  a  capacity  differing  from  that  of  the 
nervous  current  giving  rise  to  the  other  sensation  ? 
Can  a  given  quantity  of  nervous  current,  in  short,  be 
considered  as  composed  of  several  specific  elementary 
discharges — which  for  a  twofold  reason,  by  analogy 
and  by  their  effective  nature,  we  may  call  molecular 
discharges — just  as  every  mass  may  be  considered 
as  composed  of  a  certain  number  of  small  specific 
elementary  masses,  such  as  molecules  ? 

We  may  note  that  this  would  enable  us  immediately 
to  conceive  of  the  reciprocally  univocal  correspondence 
between  specificity  of  current  and  specificity  of  accumu- 
lation. We  may,  in  fact,  easily  imagine  that  two  mole- 
cules of  different  composition  or  structure  must  by  their 
sudden  decompositions  give  rise,  not  only  to  two  differ- 
ent sorts  of  materials  of  decomposition  constituting  the 
chemico-physiological  side  of  the  discharge,  but  at  the 
same  time  also  to  two  energetico-nervous  shocks  of 
different  capacity  ;  and  on  the  other  hand  this  process 
is  not  improbably  reversible,  i.e.  it  is  possible,  for  the 
reasons  to  which  we  will  immediately  allude,  that  the 
same  identical  energetico-nervous  shock,  produced 
in  the  opposite  direction,  may  restore  the  shattered 
structure.  In  fact,  in  the  case  of  our  molecules,  there 
would  probably  be  no  question  of  complete  destruction, 
to  which  should  correspond  a  reconstruction  from  the 
foundations  ;  but  perhaps,  more  simply,  of  the  separa- 
tion of  this  or  that  lateral  group  of  atoms,  at  first 
united  to  the  principal  central  mass  by  the  aid  of  links 
such  as  NH  or  NH2  or  COOH  or  some  other  similar 


BIOLOGICAL  MEMORY  77 

link  ;  and  then  the  problem  would  be  how  to  bring 
back  these  lateral  groups  of  atoms  in  order  to  reconnect 
them  with  the  central  mass. 

Thus  Verworn,  in  his  "  biogen  "  hypothesis,  admits 
that  in  disassimilation  the  non-nitrogenized  atomic 
groups  alone  are  detached,  while  the  nitrogenized  remain 
and  constitute  the  central  group,  which  is  reconstituted 
later  on  in  its  primitive  labile  complexity  at  the  expense 
of  new  non-nitrogenized  atomic  groups,  which  are 
equal  to  those  eliminated  and  which  are  provided  by 
the  nutritive  liquid.  Organic  chemistry,  on  the  other 
hand,  teaches  us  that  central  groups  of  the  same  com- 
position may  serve  as  a  base  for  lateral  groupings  of 
the  most  varied  types.  If,  then,  central  groups  and 
lateral  groupings  of  all  types  are  found  already  prepared 
in  the  nutritive  liquid,  it  is  quite  admissible  that  when 
the  same  shock  of  the  same  identical  quantity  of  energetic 
capacity,  already  provoked  by  the  detachment  of  this 
or  that  lateral  atomic  group  of  a  well-defined  quantity 
of  mass,  propagates  itself  anew  within  this  nutritive 
liquid,  it  will  shake  the  atomic  groups  of  the  same  quan- 
tity of  mass,  and  these  atomic  groups  alone,  by  selecting 
them,  so  to  speak,  from  all  the  rest,  and  thus  provoking 
anew  their  reunion  with  the  central  group. 

The  reversibility  of  this  process  would  thus  be  partly 
comparable  to  that,  but  partly  of  a  different  nature 
from  that,  of  certain  catalytic  processes  in  which  the 
same  enzyme  favours  both  the  hydrolysis  and  the 
synthesis  of  certain  organic  substances,  i.e.  both  their 
decomposition  and  the  inverse  process  of  recomposition 
from  the  separated  products  of  the  decomposition. 
But  we  may  now  ask  if  these  properties  attributed 


78        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

to  the  elementary  nervous  currents  or  discharges  are 
likely  to  explain  certain  properties  already  met  with 
in  certain  fundamental  phenomena  which  depend 
directly  on  nervous  currents. 

For  this  purpose  it  will  first  be  necessary  to  distin- 
guish between  the  two  extreme  cases  between  which 
all  possible  intermediaries  have  still  to  be  inserted, 
according  as  the  molecules  capable  of  giving  rise  to  the 
same  specific  discharge  are  arranged  all  in  parallel  or 
all  in  series.  In  the  first  case  we  shall  have  a  nervous 
current  of  very  large  total  capacity  and  of  minimum 
potential ;  in  the  second,  on  the  contrary,  a  nervous 
current  of  small  capacity — scarcely  that  of  an  elemen- 
tary discharge — but  of  high  potential.  The  nervo- 
motor  force  in  this  case  will  be  proportional  to  the 
number  of  molecules  disposed  in  series,  i.e.  propor- 
tional to  the  mass  of  the  accumulated  substance. 

Ciamician,  in  a  lecture  delivered  at  Parma,  in  Septem- 
ber 1907,  to  the  Congress  of  the  Italian  Society  for  the 
Advancement  of  Science,  propounded  the  hypothesis 
that  in  vital  energy  the  potential  factor  must  be  repre- 
sented by  the  "  will."  According  to  him,  plants  are 
endowed  with  little  vital  potential,  i.e.  little  will,  but 
with  great  capacity  or  quantity  of  life.  Animals  in 
general  would  be  more  liv^y  for  the  inverse  reason  ; 
in  insects,  in  particular,  considering  the  slightness  of 
their  dimensions,  we  must  suppose  that  the  factor  of 
capacity  would  be  small,  and  the  will  factor  on  the 
contrary  very  high. 

The  "  force  of  will  "  being  only  a  nervo-motor  force, 
this  would  be  much  the  same  as  saying  that  by  this 
hypothesis  the  serial  type  would  prevail  in  organisms 


BIOLOGICAL  MEMORY  79 

with  strong  will,  at  least  in  certain  of  their  tissues 
(nervous,  muscular  tissue).  On  the  contrary,  in  those 
with  a  large  capacity  factor  and  with  weak  will — which 
we  can  figuratively  call  phlegmatics,  a  term  particu- 
larly appropriate  in  the  case  of  the  plants — the  parallel 
type  would  be  more  dominant. 

We  stop  a  moment  to  consider  the  second  extreme 
case,  the  simplest  of  all,  and  moreover  possessing  for 
us  the  greater  interest.  As  a  disposition  in  parallel 
can  always  be  considered  as  constituted  by  a  certain 
number  of  dispositions  in  series,  such  consequences  of 
a  general  character  as  we  can  draw  from  this  second 
extreme  case — disposition  in  series — may  also  be 
extended,  with  certain  restrictions,  to  all  other  cases. 

In  this  extreme  case  of  the  disposition  in  series  of  all 
the  molecules  constituting  a  given  specific  accumulation, 
the  capacity  factor  of  the  discharge  will  be  a  constant ; 
that  is,  the  respective  specific  accumulator  will  give 
currents  of  one  and  only  one  capacity,  always  the  same 
whatever  may  be  the  number  of  its  molecules  which 
discharge.  We  may  therefore  ask  if  it  is  not  possible 
that  it  is  precisely  the  powerlessness  of  this  discharge 
to  assume  any  other  value  which  brings  it  about  that 
in  most  cases  it  can  put  itself  in  activity — or  "  get 
loose,"  as  they  say — only  when  it  finds  already  active 
about  it  these  same  currents,  or  at  least  a  part  of  these 
currents,  which  have  already  accompanied  it  the  first 
time,  at  the  moment  when,  provoked  with  the  latter 
by  the  external  world,  it  has  just  deposited  at  this 
point  its  specific  accumulation.  For  in  this  case,  and 
most  often  in  this  case  alone,  the  alterations  which  the 
discharge  of  such  a  predetermined  capacity  would 


8o        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

provoke  in  the  system  of  environmental  nervous  circu- 
lation, in  which  it  thus  found  itself  inserted,  would  be 
reduced  to  a  minimum,  so  that  a  little  nervo-motor 
force  will  suffice  to  overcome  the  resistance  due  to  these 
energetic  alterations.  The  following  example  will  per- 
haps render  more  clear  our  thought  :  Take  an  electric 
accumulator  and  suppose,  for  a  moment,  that  it  can 
give,  in  discharging  itself,  not  currents  of  all  intensities 
according  to  the  respective  resistances  of  the  circuit  or 
according  to  the  peculiar  conditions  of  electric  distribu- 
tion in  the  system  in  which  it  is  inserted,  but  one  and 
only  one  intensity  :  if  it  is  inserted  at  a  given  point  of 
a  network  traversed  by  a  given  system  of  circulating 
electric  energy,  then  it  will  discharge  only  when  this 
system  of  distribution  will  admit  in  this  point  a  current 
of  that  given  intensity,  or  when  its  electro-motor  force 
is  sufficiently  great  to  modify  the  whole  system  of 
distribution,  in  order  to  render  possible  in  this  point 
the  only  intensity  of  current  it  can  give. 

The  psychological  law  of  the  association  or  succession 
of  ideas,  and  more  generally  the  phenomenon  of  the 
whole  psychic  and  physiological  association,  which  is 
the  corner-stone  and  the  fundamental  base  not  only  of 
psychology  but  of  the  whole  of  biology,  as  well  as 
the  contrary  phenomenon  of  psycho-physiological  inhi- 
bition in  general,  would  thus  be  the  direct  consequence 
of  the  constancy  of  the  capacity  factor  of  the  discharges 
of  each  specific  accumulation. 

This  in  particular  explains — let  this  be  said  in  paren- 
thesis— why,  in  the  centro-epigenetic  development, 
the  germinal  specific  potential  elements  can  activate 
only  when  the  embryo  has  reached  the  ontogenetic 


BIOLOGICAL  MEMORY  81 

stages  corresponding  to  the  phylogenetic  stages  in 
which  these  specific  potential  elements  have  been  for 
the  first  time  deposited  in  the  germinal  substance 
itself. 

Here  it  is  sufficient  to  remark,  especially  on  the  sub- 
ject of  the  association  of  ideas  properly  so  called,  that 
it  is  difficult  not  so  much  to  understand  how  it  comes 
about  that  certain  ideas  evoke  others,  but  how  certain 
ideas  evoke  only  certain  others.  In  fact,  owing  to  the 
infinite  number  of  nervous  conductions  by  which  all 
the  psychic  centres  are  connected — and  which,  accord- 
ing to  the  calculations  of  Flechsig,  would  mount  up 
in  the  case  of  the  human  brain  to  several  millions,  and 
would  be  thousands  of  kilometres  in  length — it  might 
be  expected  that  every  excitation  of  a  single  psychic 
centre  would  be  transmitted  to  all  the  rest,  on  each 
occasion  producing  an  extremely  disorderly  and  chaotic 
association  of  ideas.  To  explain  this  limitation  of 
association  Hering,  as  I  have  already  indicated,  has 
found  it  necessary  to  have  recourse  not  only  to  the 
specificity  of  the  respective  accumulations  of  nervous 
energy  in  the  different  centres,  but  also  to  a  specificity 
of  the  ways  or  lines  of  conduction  connecting  up  these 
centres  one  with  another ;  and,  on  the  other  side,  the 
advocates  of  the  neurone  theory  compared  it  to  the 
lifting  of  a  drawbridge,  that  is  to  say,  to  the  withdrawal 
of  most  of  the  dendritic  extensions,  by  which  retraction 
the  neurone  isolates  itself  from  the  other  centres,  and 
remains  in  communication  only  with  those  by  which  it 
should  be  exclusively  stimulated.  But  Hering's  hypo- 
thesis leads  to  a  stereotyped  association  of  ideas  which 
is  absolutely  contradicted  by  the  most  familiar  facts  of 

6 


89 

mnemic  evocation  and  of  imagination,  such  as,  for 
instance,  the  dreams,  the  artistic  creations,  and  so  on. 
The  question  is  not  exhausted  by  the  other  hypothesis, 
for  it  is  not  stated  why  the  neurone  would  lift  certain 
drawbridges  and  lower  others ;  and,  moreover,  this 
neuronic  hypothesis  had  very  soon  to  give  place  to  the 
opposite  concept  of  the  effective  anatomic  continuity 
of  the  whole  of  the  nervous  network.  So  that  consider- 
ing the  effective  existence  and  continuity  of  the  very 
close  network  which  unites  to  one  another  all  the  differ- 
ent nervous  elements,  and  the  inadmissibility  of  a 
specificity  of  the  ways  or  lines  of  conduction,  we  are 
justified  in  supposing  that  the  cause  of  the  limited 
reciprocal  discharging  of  the  different  nervous  currents 
must  be  sought  in  the  energetic  properties  of  these 
currents,  and  in  the  dynamic  relations  which  may  be 
the  sequel. 

But  I  must  be  content  with  this  rapid  sketch  and 
proceed  to  touch  briefly  upon  the  other  fundamental 
and  connected  questions  of  assimilation,  of  the  trophic 
action  exercised  by  the  functional  activity,  and  of  the 
rejuvenation  produced  by  fertilization.  I  must,  how- 
ever, make  the  preliminary  statement  that  the  hypo- 
thesis I  am  about  to  set  forth  in  explanation  of  these 
phenomena  is  merely  provisional,  and  that  its  accept- 
ance or  rejection  does  not  affect  the  other,  that  of 
specific  accumulations,  which  although  helping  to 
suggest  and  to  endorse  what  I  am  going  to  set  forth  is 
nevertheless  quite  independent  of  it. 

What  strikes  the  biologist  in  the  first  place  on  the 
subject  of  assimilation  is  that  it  is  not  a  phenomenon 
of  continual  production,  but  of  continual  reproduction, 


BIOLOGICAL  MEMORY  83 

since  it  reproduces  incessantly  the  organic  substance 
in  proportion  as  it  is  consumed.  "  It  may  be  said," 
writes  Oscar  Hertwig,  "  that  life  consists  only  in  a 
continual  process  of  destruction  and  re-formation  of 
organic  substance."  And  further,  such  a  process  has 
in  itself  all  the  characters  of  a  real  mnemic  process. 
In  fact,  every  specific  substance  which  is  destroyed  by 
its  own  functional  specific  activation  is  reconstituted, 
whatever  may  be  within  certain  limits  its  nutritive 
environment,  always  specifically  identical  with  itself, 
exactly  as  if  it  were  formed  and  deposited  by  its  own 
specific  discharge,  which,  instead  of  being  as  in  the  first 
instance  destructive,  becomes  reconstructive.  One  may 
then  suspect  that  the  phenomenon  of  assimilation  is 
at  bottom  composed  of  a  double  elementary  phenomenon, 
to  wit :  the  preliminary  production  of  the  specific 
discharge  and  of  the  subsequent  deposition  on  the 
part  of  the  latter  of  its  own  specific  substance  of 
accumulation. 

Quite  independently  of  these  considerations,  other 
fundamental  manifestations  of  life  have  led  biologists 
to  conclusions  which  agree  with  this  supposition : 
The  facts  of  fertilization  or  of  conjugation  in  general, 
which  reduce  to  the  simple  "  coupling  "  of  the  chromo- 
somes of  the  male  nucleus  with  those  of  the  female 
nucleus ;  reducing  division,  which  terminates  the 
maturation  of  the  ovules  and  of  the  spermatozoids 
alike,  and  which  reduces  by  one-half  the  normal  number 
of  the  chromosomes  of  the  respective  nuclei,  with  the 
object,  one  might  almost  say,  of  allowing  the  expelled  half 
to  be  replaced  by  the  chromosomes  of  the  fertilizing 
nucleus,  also  reduced  to  half  the  ordinary  number; 


84        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

the  curious  nuclear  processes  of  synapsis,  in  which  the 
very  process  of  maturation  both  of  egg  and  spermatozoid 
begins,  and  in  which  we  see  extremely  fine  filaments 
like  coupled  and  parallel  strings  of  beads,  so  accur- 
ately paired  that  in  front  of  every  tiny  grain  of  chroma- 
tin  of  one  of  the  filaments  is  another  tiny  grain  of  the 
other ;  the  like  coupling  of  granules  of  chromatin  in 
many  other  nuclear  phases,  of  nuclei  both  germinal  and 
somatic  ;  the  presentation,  in  a  word,  always  in  pairs, 
of  all  the  microscopic  nuclear  elements  in  which  we  have 
the  strongest  reason  to  suspect  the  production  of  vital 
phenomena  ;  all  this  has  already  suggested  to  more 
than  one  biologist  the  idea  that  vital  energy  cannot  be 
produced  and  maintained  if  it  is  not  between  pairs 
of  opposed  elements  of  matter,  functioning — as  was 
vaguely  said  in  default  of  a  more  definite  hypothesis 
— like  "  antagonistic  poles."  » 

At  the  same  time  the  perfect  qualitative  equivalence 
between  the  chromosomes  of  both  sexes — deduced 
indirectly  from  their  identical  capacity  of  transmitting 
the  same  hereditary  characters  and  proved  directly 
by  certain  very  interesting  experiments  on  the  substitu- 
tion of  the  nucleus  of  a  spermatozoid  for  that  of  an 
ovule,  and  of  auto-fertilization  of  the  semi-nucleus  of 
the  ovule,  subsisting  after  the  reducing  division,  with 
its  other  half  already  expelled — leads  us  to  believe 
that  a  like  qualitative  identity  exists  between  the 
opposed  material  of  elementary  pairs. 

We  may  therefore  hazard  the  hypothesis  that  the 
so-called  "  antagonistic  poles,"  constituting  each  vital 
element,  are  only  two  serial  accumulators  specifically 
identical  to  one  another,  but  of  different  potential, 


BIOLOGICAL  MEMORY  85 

face  to  face  as  object  and  image,  between  which,  thus 
opposed,  there  is  produced  an  intranuclear  oscillating 
nervous  discharge,  comparable  in  certain  respects  to 
the  oscillating  electric  discharges  of  Hertz's  resonators. 
And  just  as  these  oscillations  are  reinforced  by  the 
Hertzian  waves  synchronous  with  them,  so  the  intracel- 
lular  oscillating  nervous  discharges  may  be  reinforced, 
with  increase  of  the  respective  specific  substance  de- 
posited in  both  the  opposed  accumulators,  by  the 
synchronous  oscillations  of  the  thermic  and  luminous 
rays,  which  are  nothing  but  Hertzian  waves  of  much 
shorter  vibratory  period.  In  this  connection  the  fact 
observed  by  Engelmann  is  very  interesting  :  the  colours 
of  the  spectrum  which  are  preferentially  absorbed  by  bac- 
teria are  also  those  most  favourable  to  their  metabolism. 
This  metabolism  can  therefore  be  due  only  to  a  process 
of  a  vibratory  nature  also  capable  of  resonance. 

Thus  we  would  have  a  process  of  automatic  growth 
of  the  nuclear  substance,  liable,  however,  gradually  to 
be  checked  by  the  equalization  which  would  tend  to 
be  produced  continuously  between  the  nervo-motor 
forces  of  the  two  coupled  and  opposed  accumulators. 

Hence  the  trophic  action  exercised  by  every  process 
adapted  to  re-establish  the  inequality  between  the  two 
opposed  nervo-motor  forces,  and  therefore  exercised 
by  every  extra-nuclear  functional  discharge  ;  this  is 
in  conformity  with  experience,  which  teaches  us  that 
the  phenomena  of  functional  destruction  are,  in  the 
words  of  Claude  Bernard,  "  the  precursors  and  instiga- 
tors "  of  the  organic  reconstitution,  effected  in  the 
so-called  periods  of  functional  repose. 

Hence,  too,  the  action  of  rejuvenation  exercised  by 


S6        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

fertilization  or  conjugation,  which  would  substitute, 
in  each  of  the  germinal  mnemic  elements,  for  one  of  the 
two  accumulators  of  nervo-motor  force  equal  to  that 
of  the  other,  another  specifically  identical  accumulator, 
but  of  quantitatively  different  nervo-motor  force. 
This  fertilization  or  conjugation,  according  to  Spencer, 
has  been  considered  by  most  biologists  as  equivalent 
to  the  disturbance  of  an  equilibrium  which  would  make 
impossible  the  maintenance  of  the  vital  activity  ;  and, 
therefore,  we  understand  how  it  can  be  replaced  by 
functional  activity  or  any  other  similar  disturbing 
process,  as  is  shown  by  Maupas  in  his  experiments  on 
infusoria,  and  by  recent  experiments  on  artificial 
parthenogenesis. 

And  finally  from  it  we  see  the  universal  tendency  of 
life,  under  the  action  of  thermic  energy,  to  take  an 
indefinite  expansion,  i.e.  "  to  attract,"  as  Mach  says, 
"  into  its  own  sphere  larger  and  larger  quantities  of 
matter,"  the  tendency  to  indefinite  self-expansion 
which  has  induced  so  many  writers,  and  Ostwald  in 
particular,  to  compare  life  to  fire. 

It  was  Ostwald,  in  his  Vorlesungen,  who  was  the  first, 
as  far  as  I  know,  to  attempt  to  give  a  physico-chemical 
explanation  of  the  mnemic  phenomenon,  and  at  the 
same  time  of  the  trophic  action  exercised  by  the  repeti- 
tion of  the  functional  activity.  However,  he  takes  into 
consideration  only  "  habit,"  which  certainly  does  enter 
into  the  phenomena  of  memory,  but  which  does  not 
embrace  them  all.  He  holds  that  habit  is  due  to  the 
formation  and  growth  of  a  catalytic  accelerator  during 
the  functional  reaction.  Suppose,  says  he,  that  every 
of  the  organism  is  due  to  the  fact  that  in  conse- 


BIOLOGICAL  MEMORY  87 

quence  of  a  stimulus  or  of  the  activation  of  the  will 
is  produced  a  catalytic  accelerator  which  releases  the 
action  itself.  This  catalytic  accelerator  can  have  but 
a  short  existence,  for  otherwise  the  organism  could  not 
return  to  its  normal  condition  after  accomplishing  the 
act.  We  might  suppose,  continues  Ostwald,  that  the 
catalytic  accelerator  is  always  present,  although  in  a 
generally  inactive  form,  becoming  active  momentarily 
under  the  influence  of  stimulus  ;  and  we  might  also 
suppose  that  this  catalytic  accelerator  has  the  property 
of  increasing  in  quantity,  at  the  expense  of  the  nutritive 
liquid  present,  only  during  its  active  state.  Then  the 
content  of  this  accelerator  will  increase  at  each  repetition 
of  the  act,  and  therefore  the  act  itself  may  be  provoked 
on  each  successive  occasion  with  ever  greater  rapidity. 
Thus,  concludes  our  author,  we  should  have  in  such  a 
catalytic  accelerator  the  specific  accumulation  desired, 
corresponding  to  this  particular  functional  activity. 

This  is  not  an  explanation  at  all,  especially  if  instead 
of  considering  a  "  physiological  habit,"  isolated  from 
all  the  rest,  and  also  apart  from  the  fact  of  its  first 
acquisition,  we  embrace,  on  the  contrary,  in  one  survey, 
all  the  vital  phenomena  of  the  organism  in  all  their 
complexity :  it  then  appears  very  necessary  to  reduce 
them,  so  to  speak,  to  a  common  denominator,  to  a  single 
intermediary  of  reciprocal  relations,  capable  of  uniting 
and  co-ordinating  them  in  one  harmonious  whole  such 
as  the  organism  effectively  is. 

How  are  we,  for  example,  to  explain  by  means  of 
catalytic  specific  accumulations,  which  have  between 
them  no  substratum  of  common  relation  and  of  recipro- 
cal dependence,  the  transmissibility  of  acquired  habits  ? 


88        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

Can  we  for  this  purpose  venture  to  assume  that  as  many 
different  enzymes  are  received  in  the  germinal  plasma 
as  there  are  habits  acquired  by  the  organism  ?  We 
then  simply  fall  back  on  the  Darwinian  theory  of 
gemmules,  and  once  again  we  have  to  explain  how  this 
infinite  number  of  enzymes  happens  to  present  itself 
in  the  daughter-organism  exactly  at  the  desired  point. 

To  quote  other  very  simple  examples,  how  can  we 
explain  the  physiological  and  psychic  association  referred 
to  above  by  unconnected  catalytic  specific  accumula- 
tions ?  How  can  we  account,  moreover,  by  their 
means,  for  the  mnemic  evocation  properly  so  called, 
for  the  simplest  remembrance  of  a  landscape  or  of  a 
phrase,  in  which  we  have  to  deal  with  as  many 
"  habits,"  as  many  specific  accumulations,  as  there 
are  evocations  of  elementary  sensations  composing 
the  recollection  ? 

Certainly,  with  our  nervous  energy,  endowed  with 
the  property  of  specific  accumulation,  and  constituting 
this  desired  intermediary,  this  desired  circulating 
medium  of  general  correspondence  and  co-ordination, 
we  introduce  one  form  of  energy,  which  is  not  reducible 
to  one  of  those  forms  of  energy  which  we  know  in 
physico-chemistry,  i.e.  a  form  of  energy  such  that, 
although  naturally  obeying  the  general  laws  of  energetics, 
it  would,  however,  differ  by  certain  well-defined  elemen- 
tary properties  from  other  forms  of  energy,  just  as  these 
other  forms  differ  from  one  another.  But  it  does  not 
seem  to  me  that  this  conception  contains  anything 
that  in  itself  is  inadmissible  from  the  scientific  point 
of  view. 

Ciamician.  who  in  his  syntheses  of  organic  substances 


BIOLOGICAL  MEMORY  Sg 

has  perhaps  kept  closer  than  others  to  the  path  followed 
by  nature  itself,  finally  had  recourse,  as  we  have  seen, 
to  a  vital  energy,  with  its  own  peculiar  properties. 
And  Ostwald,  too,  when  he  speaks  of  different  energies, 
mechanical,  electrical,  chemical,  which  in  the  nerve 
they  stimulate  are  all  transformed  into  nervous  energy, 
seems  to  me  not  far  from  the  admission  that  the  latter 
may  be  a  form  of  energy  in  itself  different  from  the  rest. 
I  conclude  with  the  following  words  of  Mach,  which 
I  am  pleased  to  make  my  own :  "As  long  as  we  believe 
in  the  possibility  of  reducing  all  physics  to  mechanics, 
and  as  long  as  we  believe  in  the  possibility  of  reducing 
mechanics  itself  to  the  simple  doctrines  we  know  at 
present,  life  must  appear  to  us  effectively  as  something 
hyperplhysical.  But  for  my  own  part,  I  cannot  associate 
myself  with  either  of  these  conceptions." 


IV 


ON    THE    MNEMIC    ORIGIN    AND    NATURE    OF 
THE   AFFECTIVE   TENDENCIES 


IF  we  study  the  "  behaviour  "  of  the  different  organisms 
from  the  unicellular  to  man,  we  see  that  a  whole  series 
of  their  acts,  and  especially  the  most  important,  may  be 
interpreted  as  the  manifestation  of  a  tendency  of  the 
organism  to  persist  in  or  to  return  to  its  "  stationary  " 
physiological  state — to  use  an  epithet  from  Ostwald's 
energetics. 

In  other  words,  if  we  reserve  the  name  of  "  affective  " 
for  that  special  category  of  organic  tendencies  which 
are  subjectively  manifested  in  man  in  the  form  of 
"  desires,"  "  appetites,"  or  "  needs,"  and  which  objec- 
tively in  man  and  the  animals  are  translated  into  "  non- 
mechanized  movements,"  completed  or  nascent,  then 
a  whole  series  of  the  principal  "  affective  tendencies  " 
thus  defined  may  be  reduced  to  the  single  fundamental 
tendency  of  the  organism  to  maintain  its  "  physiological 
invariability." 

We  see,  for  instance,  that  the  most  fundamental 
affective  tendency  of  all,  that  of  hunger,  is  in  the  long 
run  nothing  but  the  tendency  to  maintain  or  to  re- 

90 


AFFECTIVE  TENDENCIES  91 

establish  the  internal  nutritive  environment  in  the 
qualitative  and  quantitative  conditions  which  enable 
the  stationary  metabolic  state  to  continue.  This 
tendency  of  the  organism  towards  the  invariability  of 
its  own  metabolism  has  in  the  course  of  phyletic  evolu- 
tion become  a  tendency  to  pass  through  all  those  tran- 
sitory physiological  states  that  can  re-establish  the 
requisite  conditions  of  the  internal  environment,  i.e. 
a  tendency  to  perform  all  the  acts  which  have  food  as 
their  object,  and  this  without  loss,  at  any  stage,  of  its 
essential  and  original  nature.  The  proof  of  this  lies 
in  the  fact  that,  once  the  internal  nutritive  environment 
is  restored  to  its  normal  conditions,  every  tendency 
in  the  animal  to  seek  for  further  food  ipso  facto  dis- 
appears. 

Thus  the  hydra  and  the  sea  anemone  react  positively 
to  food  "  unless  metabolism,"  as  Jennings  says,  "  is  in 
such  a  state  as  to  require  more  material  "  ;  for  instance, 
food  placed  on  the  disc  of  the  large  sea  anemone,  Stoich- 
actis  helianthus,  when  the  animal  is  not  hungry,  provokes 
the  same  characteristic  reaction  of  "  rejection  "  as  if 
it  were  any  other  disturbing  object.  All  other  organ- 
isms, higher  or  lower,  from  the  top  of  the  scale  to  the 
bottom,  behave  in  the  same  way.1 

Schiffs  experiments,  in  which  he  injected  nutritive 
substances  into  the  veins  of  dogs,  show  directly,  on  the 
other  hand,  that  the  fundamental  condition  of  hunger 
is  the  impoverishment  of  the  histogenetic  substances 
of  the  blood.  For  these  injections  succeed  not  only 
in  nourishing  the  animal  but  in  appeasing  its  hunger. 

'  H.  S.  Jennings,  Behaviour  of  Lower  Organisms,  New  York,  Macmillan, 
1906,  for  instance,  pp.  202,  205,  etc.       *- 


92        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

The  fact  that  hunger,  especially  when  it  is  moderate, 
assumes  in  man  the  form  of  a  localized  special  sensation, 
originating  in  the  wall  of  the  stomach,  of  itself  sufficient 
to  determine  the  same  acts  as  those  induced  by  genuine 
hunger,  is,  as  we  need  hardly  remark,  only  a  natural 
consequence  and  of  but  secondary  importance.  It  is 
only  one  of  the  many  forms  of  that  substitution  of  the 
part  for  the  whole  which  is  characteristic  of  all  the  physio- 
logico-mnemic  processes  :  in  fact,  these  special  sensa- 
tions localized  in  the  gastric  mucous  membrane,  and 
due  to  its  swelling  or  to  some  other  more  or  less  similar 
change  produced  in  the  mucous  membrane  by  the  empty 
condition  of  the  stomach,  these  phenomena,  from  the 
fact  that  they  usually  precede  and  accompany  the 
actual  impoverishment  of  the  histogenetic  substances 
in  the  blood,  become  thereby  representative  and  vicari- 
ous signs  of  hunger. 

The  same  may  be  said  of  thirst  and  of  its  vicarious 
localization  in  the  upper  parts  of  the  alimentary  canal. 

If  we  pass  on  from  hunger  and  thirst  to  the  other 
more  fundamental  "  appetites  "  or  "  needs,"  we  find 
that  all  their  external  manifestations  reveal  to  us  that 
their  one  and  only  end  is  the  restoration  of  the  station- 
ary physiological  state,  which  in  some  way  or  other  has 
been  disturbed  or  destroyed. 

Thus,  for  instance,  there  exists  for  every  animal 
species  an  optimum  of  environment  relative  to  the  degree 
of  saturation  of  the  solution  in  which  the  animal  lives, 
to  the  degree  of  temperature,  to  the  intensity  of  light, 
and  so  on,  above  and  below  which  the  organism  can 
no  longer  maintain  itself  in  its  normal  physiological 
state,  and  in  which  the  animal  therefore  makes  every 


AFFECTIVE  TENDENCIES  93 

possible  effort  to  maintain  itself.  For  example,  we 
see  that  the  infusorium  Param&cium  at  28°  C.  reacts 
negatively  to  a  rising  but  not  to  a  falling  tempera- 
ture, while  at  22°  C.  it  reacts  negatively  to  a  falling 
and  not  to  a  rising  temperature.  We  also  see  that 
Euglena  in  a  moderate  light  reacts  negatively  to  a 
decrease  but  not  to  an  increase  in  the  intensity  of 
the  light,  while  in  a  stronger  light  the  reaction  is 
reversed.1 

The  tendency  of  organisms  to  the  invariability  of 
their  own  stationary  physiological  state  thus  changes 
into  a  tendency  to  the  invariability  of  their  external 
or  internal  environments.  Oysters  and  actinians,  for 
instance,  close  when  exjftsed  to  the  air ;  i.e.  they 
"  behave  "  so  as  to  keep  invariable  the  humidity  of 
their  internal  environment.8 

In  this  invariability  of  environment  is  also  comprised 
the  position  of  the  organism  in  relation  to  the  direction 
of  the  different  external  forces  to  the  action  of  which 
it  is  exposed,  particularly  of  the  force  of  gravity.  Thus, 
for  instance,  the  amoeba  usually  draws  in  its  pseudo- 
podia  when  they  come  into  contact  with  solid  in- 
edible bodies ;  but  if  it  is  lifted  off  the  bottom  of  the 
aquarium  and  is  suspended  in  the  water,  it  stretches 
out  its  pseudopodia  in  all  directions,  and  as  soon  as 
one  of  them  touches  a  solid  body,  it  takes  hold  of 
it,  and  draws  its  body  over  to  it,  so  as  to  resume  on 
this  new  support  its  original  position.  An  inverted 
starfish  tries  to  "  turn  over,"  i.e.  to  return  to  its 

1  H.  S.  Jennings,  op.  cit.,  pp.  294-5. 

*  H.    Pieron,  devolution    de  la  memoirc,    Paris,  Flammarion,   1910, 
PP-  29,  74- 


94        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

normal  conditions  of  environment  with  respect  to  the 
force  of  gravity.1 

And  further,  all  "  needs  "  to  throw  off  the  products 
of  the  general  metabolism  for  which  the  organism  has 
no  further  use  are  no  exceptions  to  this  general  rule 
that  applies  alike  to  the  smallest  and  simplest  infu- 
sorium or  the  most  complex  vertebrate.  For  the 
"  need  "  of  throwing  them  off,  even  if  it  is  contingently 
provoked  by  certain  "  vicarious "  local  sensations, 
capable  of  determining  in  advance  the  act  of  elimina- 
tion, is  in  the  long  run  seen  to  be  due  only  to  the  fact 
that  the  accumulation  of  these  waste  substances  within 
the  organism  would  eventually  disturb  the  normal 
physiological  state.  • 

To  this  category  of  eliminative  affective  tendencies 
also  seems  to  belong  the  sexual  "  instinct  "  or  sexual 
"  hunger." 

We  know,  in  fact,  that  certain  recent  theories  are 
disposed  to  assign  to  sexual  hunger — just  as  in  the 
case  of  hunger  proper — not  a  limited  local  zone,  con- 
stituted in  this  case  by  the  sexual  organs,  but  the 
whole  organism,  and  at  the  same  time  to  regard  it 
as  due  to  the  "  need "  of  eliminating  the  germinal 
substance.9 

It  is,  for  instance,  not  impossible  that  just  as  the 
infusoria  after  a  certain  number  of  simple  bipartitions 
become  subject  to  "  senile  degeneration,"  so  also  the 
germinal  substance  of  the  adult  organism  may  suffer 
a  similar  "  degeneration,"  especially  after  it  has  under- 

1  K.  C.  Schneider,  Vorlesungen  uber  Thier psychologic,  Leipzig,  Engel- 
mann,  1909,  pp.  5,  37. 

3  Cf.,  but  only  for  certain  points  of  view,  J.  Roux,  L' instinct  d' amour, 
Paris,  Bailliere,  1904,  ch.  i  :  Base  organique  de  V instinct  sexuel. 


AFFECTIVE  TENDENCIES  95 

gone  the  reducing  divisions,  and  has  not  yet  experienced 
karyogamic  rejuvenation. 

Hence  there  is  something  plausible  in  the  hypothesis 
that  "  sexual  hunger  "  is  in  its  origin  nothing  but  the 
tendency  of  the  organism  to  get  rid  of  the  "  senile 
corruption  "  which  the  germinal  substance,  from  its 
very  nature  of  a  nuclear  substance  ready  for  fertiliza- 
tion, produces  and  diffuses  throughout  the  whole 
organism  by  its  hormonic  secretions  or  its  substances 
of  disintegration. 

The  more  or  less  brilliant  and  striking  "  wedding 
garment  "  assumed  at  the  period  of  courtship  by  nearly 
all  animals,  and  due  to  an  eminently  abnormal  condition 
of  general  hypersecretion,  provoked  in  its  turn  by  the 
hormonic  products  of  the  sexual  organs,  is  in  every  case 
the  outward  and  visible  sign  of  the  profound  physio- 
logical disturbance  which  is  caused  in  all  somatic  cells 
by  the  germinal  substance  awaiting  fertilization. 

The  tendency  to  get  rid  of  so  profoundly  disturbing 
an  element  would  later  become  a  tendency  to  copula- 
tion as  an  effective  means  of  securing  this  expulsion. 

Hence  the  "  fundamentally  selfish  "  nature  of  sexual 
love  upon  which  Ribot  rightly  lays  such  emphasis  : 
"  In  the  immense  majority  of  animals  and  often  in 
man,  the  sexual  instinct  is  not  accompanied  by  any 
tender  emotion.  Once  the  act  is  accomplished,  there 
is  separation  and  oblivion."  x 

It  still  remains  to  explain  why  the  copulation  of  the 
sexes  has  become  the  sole  means  for  expulsion  of  the 
germinal  substance,  while  the  single  individual  suffices 

1  Ribot,  La  psychologic  des  sentiments,  Paris,  Alcan,  1906,  p.  258  ;  and 
Essai  sur  les  passions,  Paris,  Alcan,  1907,  pp.  67  et  seq. 


for  the  elimination  of  the  other  more  or  less  analogous 
waste  substances. 

It  is  easy  to  suppose  that  this  must  in  the  long  run 
be  due  to  the  peculiar  nature  of  the  substance  to  be  got 
rid  of.  And  two  facts  may  perhaps,  if  considered 
together,  throw  a  little  light  on  the  subject :  the  attrac- 
tion exerted  at  a  distance  by  the  ovule  on  the  sperma- 
tozoid,  by  means  of  secretions  diffused  in  all  directions, 
and  the  fact  that  hermaphroditism  probably  preceded 
sexual  dimorphism  in  the  phylogeny  of  multicellular 
organisms.  It  must,  however,  be  confessed  that  the 
phylogenetic  process,  by  which  this  elimination  from  the 
organism  of  the  germinal  substance  has  become  so 
closely  associated  with  copulation,  is  still  far  from  a 
satisfactory  explanation. 

But  even  though  incomplete,  this  hypothesis,  which 
gives  to  the  sexual  instinct  the  significance  of  a  simple 
tendency  to  eliminate  a  disturbing  element,  enables 
us  to  present  the  instinct  itself  in  a  very  different  light 
from  that  under  which  it  has  so  far  been  considered. 
If  we  accept  this  hypothesis,  in  fact,  it  would  be  no 
longer  for  the  good  of  the  species,  but  for  that  of  the 
individual,  that  such  an  instinct  originated  and  was 
developed.  It  would  no  longer  represent  the  "  will  of 
the  species  "  imposing  itself  upon  the  individual,  as 
most  people  now  maintain  with  Schopenhauer.  But 
it  would,  as  do  all  the  other  fundamental  physiological 
needs,  rather  represent  also  here  the  "  will "  of  the 
individual  itself,  i.e.  its  ordinary  tendency  to  maintain 
invariable  its  own  stationary  physiological  state.  There 
is  no  need  to  follow  Weismann  and  all  the  Neo-Dar- 
winians,  and  to  see  in  it  an  argument  in  favour  of  the 


AFFECTIVE  TENDENCIES  97 

alleged  omnipotence  of  natural  selection.  Lamarck's 
simple  principle  of  individual  adaptation,  combined 
with  the  transmissibility  of  acquired  characters,  would 
suffice  to  account  for  this  as  well  as  for  all  the  other 
instincts. 

Further,  the  "  elimination "  hypothesis  enables  us 
to  explain  certain  peculiarities  of  this  instinct  which 
would  be  quite  incomprehensible  from  the  point  of  view 
of  Schopenhauer  and  the  Neo-Darwinians. 
^jThus,  for  instance,  Ribot  is  surprised  that  an  instinct 
of  such  essential  importance  in  perpetuating  the  species 
is  so  easily  liable  to  perversions  which  seem  to  imply 
its  complete  negation.1 

p  Passing  over  genuine  and  characteristic  pathological 
perversions,  the  very  readiness  with  which  normal 
people  adopt  neo-Malthusian  practices  and  the  like  is 
difficult  to  reconcile  with  the  hypothesis  that  the  sole 
reason  for  the  existence  of  such  an  instinct  is  the  propa- 
gation and  conservation  of  the  species. 

Finally,  the  fact  that  both  animals  and  man  now 
desire  copulation  and  the  other  secondary  sexual  rela- 
tions for  their  own  sakes — i.e.  independently  of  the  act  of 
elimination  of  the  germinal  substance,  and  even  some- 
times when  there  is  no  germinal  substance  to  eliminate — 
this  also,  as  we  shall  better  appreciate  later  on,  is  only 
the  consequence  of  the  mnemic  law  already  mentioned 
of  the  substitution  of  the  part  for  the  whole,  and  of  the 
law  of  "  transference  "  of  affective  tendencies  which 
is  derived  from  it.  According  to  this  law  all  the  pheno- 
mena which  constantly  accompany  the  satisfaction  of 
certain  affectivities  become  in  their  turn  the  object  of 

1  Ribot,  op.  cit.  :  La  psychologic  des  sentiments,  pp.  263-5. 

7 


98         ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

desire,  and  all  the  habits  acquired  for  the  satisfaction, 
or  in  the  course  of  the  satisfaction,  of  certain  aff ectivities 
become  in  their  turn  affective  tendencies. 

Once  the  sexual  instinct  itself  has  been  referred, 
phylogenetically,  to  the  category  of  tendencies  serving 
to  maintain  invariable  the  stationary  physiological 
state  of  the  organism,  such  a  law,  as  far  as  the  funda- 
mental organic  tendencies  are  concerned,  is  open  to  no 
exception.  It  may  therefore  be  summed  up  as  follows  : 

Every  organism  is  a  physiological  system  in  a  station- 
ary condition,  and  tends  to  maintain  itself  in  that  state 
or  to  return  to  it  whenever  that  stationary  state  has 
been  disturbed  by  any  change  that  has  taken  place  in 
its  internal  or  external  environment. 

This  property  forms  the  basis  and  essence  of  all  the 
"  needs,"  of  all  the  "  desires,"  of  all  the  most  essential 
organic  "  appetites."  All  movements  of  approach  or 
withdrawal,  of  attack  or  defence,  of  taking  or  rejecting, 
that  are  made  by  animals,  are  nothing  but  so  many  more 
or  less  direct  or  indirect  consequences  of  this  very  general 
tendency  of  each  stationary  physiological  state  to  remain 
constant.  We  shall  soon  see  how  this  tendency  may  in 
its  turn  be  connected  with  the  fundamental  mnemic 
property  of  all  living  substance. 

This  single  physiological  tendency  of  a  very  general 
kind  is  sufficient,  therefore,  to  give  rise  to  a  whole 
series  of  particular  effective  tendencies  of  the  most 
varied  character.  Thus,  every  special  cause  of  disturb- 
ance will  provoke  a  corresponding  tendency  to  repulsion 
with  characteristics  of  its  own,  determined  by  the  nature 
of  the  disturbance,  by  its  degree  of  intensity,  by  the 
modes  of  reaction  suitable  for  avoiding  the  disturbing 


AFFECTIVE  TENDENCIES  99 

factor  ;  and,  on  the  contrary,  for  every  means  capable 
of  preserving  or  restoring  the  normal  physiological 
state  there  will  be  a  quite  distinct  corresponding 
tendency  of  "  longing,"  "  desire,"  "  attraction,"  and 
the  like. 

The  "  instinct  of  preservation  " — understood  in  the 
restricted  ordinary  sense  of  preservation  of  one's  own 
life — is  also  nothing  but  a  particular  derivative  and 
direct  consequence  of  the  same  very  general  tendency 
to  preserve  physiological  invariability ;  seeing  that, 
evidently,  every  situation  which  would  in  the  long  run 
lead  to  death  first  presents  itself  as  a  mere  disturbance, 
and  it  is  only  as  such  that  the  animal  tends  to  and 
learns  to  avoid  it.  The  amoeba,  for  instance,  which 
Jennings  tells  us  was  completely  swallowed  by  another 
amoeba,  and  after  many  efforts  succeeded  in  escaping, 
did  not  in  all  probability  make  these  efforts  to  avoid  a 
danger  threatening  its  life,  but  to  avoid  a  change  in  its 
normal  environment  which,  though  representing  a 
profound  disturbance,  was  nevertheless  nothing  but 
a  disturbance. 

It  is  well  known  that  Quinton  was  the  first  to  develop 
a  theory  that  organisms  tend  to  maintain  in  their 
internal  intercellular  environment  the  same  physico- 
chemical  conditions  which  existed  in  the  primordial 
environment  when  life  appeared  on  the  earth.1 

But  it  is  easily  seen  that  our  theory  is  limited  to 
the  consideration  of  this  tendency  to  invariability  only 
in  so  far  as  it  manifests  itself  at  every  moment  by  the 

1  R.  Quinton,  L'eau  de  mer  milieu  organique.  Constance  du  milieu 
marin  originel  comnie  milieu  vital  des  cellules,  a  travers  la  serie  animale> 
Paris,  Masson,  1904  ;  in  particular  Bk.  II :  Loi  generate  de  Constance 
originelle,  pp.  429-56. 


behaviour  of  each  individual.  And  instead  of  serving 
as  a  point  of  departure,  taken  from  a  far  too  one-sided 
point  of  view,  for  the  explanation  of  the  evolution  of 
species,  it  forms  the  basis  from  which  may  be  derived 
all  the  most  important  affective  tendencies  of  the 
animal  world. 

Being  a  factor  of  invariability  for  the  individual, 
this  tendency  to  the  conservation  of  its  own  physiologi- 
cal stability  has  become,  indeed,  one  of  the  principal 
factors  in  the  variation  and  progress  of  the  species,  but 
its  mode  of  action  is  not  the  mode  suggested  by  Quinton. 
For  this  tendency  has  aroused  and  developed  the 
faculty  of  movement,  constituting  the  greatest  distinc- 
tion between  the  plant  and  animal  worlds.  The  growth 
of  this  faculty  in  its  turn  proceeds  step  by  step  with 
the  development  and  improvement  of  the  whole  loco- 
motor  apparatus,  including  that  of  the  nervous  system, 
which  in  itself  alone  plays  so  important  a  part  in  deter- 
mining the  fundamental  characteristics  distinguishing 
one  animal  species  from  another. 

Finally,  as  a  factor  of  individual  invariability  it  has 
proved  by  its  action  on  man  to  be  one  of  the  principal 
factors  in  the  whole  of  social  evolution.  All  technical 
inventions  and  the  whole  economic  production,  from 
the  first  cave-dwellings,  the  first  garments  of  skin,  the 
first  discovery  of  fire,  to  the  utmost  refinements  of 
the  present  day,  have,  in  fact,  directly  or  indirectly, 
but  the  one  object — the  artificial  maintenance  of  the 
greatest  possible  constancy  of  the  environment,  that 
being  the  necessary  and  sufficient  condition  for  the 
conservation  of  physiological  invariability. 


AFFECTIVE  TENDENCIES  101 


II 


To  this  fundamental  property  possessed  by  every 
organism  of  tending  to  maintain  invariable  its  normal 
physiological  condition,  or  to  restore  its  equilibrium  if 
disturbed,  is  now  to  be  added  another  which  in  its  turn 
becomes  the  source  of  new  affectivities. 

When  the  stationary  physiological  state  is  disturbed 
and  cannot  be  restored  by  any  means,  i.e.  by  any 
kind  of  movements  or  displacements,  the  organism 
tends  to  take  up  a  new  stationary  state  consistent 
with  the  new  external  or  internal  environment. 
We  thus  have  a  new  series  of  phenomena  called 
"  adaptations." 

As  an  instance  we  may  mention  the  classical 
experiments  of  Dallinger  on  the  acclimatization  of 
the  lower  organisms.  They  were  suggested  by  the 
observation  that  a  number  of  organisms  usually 
living  in  water  of  a  normal  temperature  also  live 
and  flourish  in  water  of  the  hottest  thermal  springs. 
These  experiments  have  shown  that  the  infusoria 
may  become  accustomed  to  gradually  increasing 
temperatures,  and  that  after  a  year  of  slow  and 
gradual  increase  of  temperature  they  can  live  under 
conditions  which  would  kill  an  unclimatized  indi- 
vidual. We  also  know  that  the  same  species  of 
Protozoa  are  found  both  in  fresh  and  in  sea  water, 
and  that  it  is  possible  gradually  to  accustom  the 
fresh-water  amoebae  and  infusoria  to  live  in  sea- 
water  so  salt  that  it  would  have  killed  them  if  they 


102        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

had  been  placed  in  it  at  first.  And  there  are  further 
instances  of  the  kind.1 

Now,  it  is  interesting  to  note  that  the  new  con- 
ditions of  the  environment  to  which  the  animal  be- 
comes gradually  accustomed  tend  in  time  to  become 
its  optimum :  "  Individual  adaptation  (e.g.  to  each 
change  of  saline  density)  is  effected  according  to 
the  law  by  which  the  conditions  of  density  under 
which  an  individual  is  constrained  to  live  tend  in 
time  to  become  the  optimum  conditions  for  that 
individual."  a 

The  fact  may  be  verified  even  in  plant  organisms. 
Plasmodia  of  the  Myxomycetes,  which  would  die  if 
suddenly  plunged  into  I  or  2  per  cent,  solutions 
of  glucose,  and  which  draw  back  from  solutions 
of  |  or  J  per  cent.,  may  yet  gradually  become  so 
accustomed  to  2  per  cent,  solutions  that  they 
finally  show  by  their  "  behaviour "  that  they  prefer 
the  new  environment  to  the  original  one  without 
glucose.  3 

The  diatom  Navicula  brevis  normally  shuns  even  the 
weakest  light,  and  tries  to  hide  itself  in  the  darkest 
part  of  the  drop  of  water  in  which  it  is  being  observed. 
But  a  culture  which  is  placed  in  the  bright  light  of  a 
window  for  a  couple  of  weeks  exhibits  exactly  the 
opposite  tendency.  It  moves  into  the  brightest  part 

1  Cf.  C.  B.  Davenport  and  W.  E.  Castle,  On  the  Acclimatisation  -of 
Organisms  to  High  Temperatures.  "  Archiv  f.  Entw.  Mech.  d.  Organis- 
men,"  II.  Band,  ii.  Heft,  July  1895  ;  C.  B.  Davenport  and  H.  V.  Neal,  On 
the  Acclimatisation  of  Organisms  to  Poisonous  Chemical  Substances,  ibidti 
II.  Band,  iv.  Heft,  January  1896. 

*  Davenport  and  Castle,  ibid.,  p.  241.' 

3  E.  Stahl,  Zur  Biologic  dcr  Myxomyceten,  "  Botanische  Zeitung,"  March 
7,  14,  21,  1884,  p.  166. 


AFFECTIVE  TENDENCIES  103 

of  the  drop  as  soon  as  it  is  restored  to  the  weaker  light 
of  its  former  conditions.1 

The  common  actinia  (Actinia  equina)  which  is  found 
clinging  to  the  rocks  in  all  possible  positions  with  rela- 
tion to  the  direction  of  the  force  of  gravity,  for  the  axis 
of  its  body  may  be  directed  upwards  or  downwards  or 
cross-wise,  seems  to  become  so  accustomed  to  one 
particular  position  that  when  removed  elsewhere  it 
tends  to  take  up  the  same  position  as  before.  So  that, 
if  actinians  found  in  different  positions  are  collected 
and  placed  in  an  aquarium,  "  they  show  an  unmistak- 
able tendency  to  assume  the  position  they  formerly 
adopted."  3 

Examples  might  be  multiplied,  but  here  we  are  mainly 
concerned  with  their  significance.  They  prove  that 
when  once  the  new  physiological  state  arising  from  adap- 
tation to  the  new  environment  has  come  into  existence 
and  lasted  for  a  certain  time  within  the  organism,  it 
tends,  if  disturbed,  to  be  restored.  This  tendency  thus 
possessed  by  any  past  physiological  state  to  "  re- 
manifest  "  or  "  reproduce  "  itself,  is  nothing  but  the 
tendency  to  evoke  itself  possessed  in  general  by  every 
mnemic  accumulation.  Hence  it  is  a  tendency  of  purely 
mnemic  character. 

But  then  the  same  mnemic  character  may  also  be 
attributed  to  that  tendency  to  physiological  invaria- 
bility from  which  we  have  seen  are  derived  the  funda- 
mental organic  tendencies  of  all  organisms  without  excep- 
tion. For  if  in  the  above  examples  an  entirely  new 
and  recent  physiological  state  can  leave  behind  it  a 

1  Davenport  and  Castle,  ibid.,  p.  241. 

*  H-  Pieron,  op.  cit, :  L' Evolution  de  la  memoire,  p.  144. 


io4        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

mnemic  accumulation,  capable  in  itself  of  giving  rise 
to  a  distinct  tendency  to  its  own  reproduction,  we  can 
quite  understand  that,  in  proportion  as  the  normal 
physiological  state  has  lasted  much  longer,  it  must 
possess  a  correspondingly  stronger  tendency  to  self- 
restoration  when  subject  to  disturbance. 

This,  then,  implies  that  each  of  the  innumerable 
different  elementary  physiological  states,  of  which 
each  is  active  at  one  definite  point  of  the  organism  and 
all  combined  constitute  the  general  physiological  state, 
possesses  the  faculty  of  depositing  a  proper  "  specific 
accumulation,  similar  to  that  deposited  in  the  brain 
by  each  of  the  nervous  currents  which  make  up  the 
different  sensations  and  leave  behind  them  a  mnemonic 
residue  capable  of  being  reactivated  or  revived.  By 
"  specific  accumulation  "  of  the  various  nervous  currents 
we  must  understand  no  more  or  less  than  this  :  that 
each  accumulation  is  capable  of  giving  as  a  discharge 
only  that  particular  specificity  of  the  nervous  current 
by  which  this  accumulation  has  been  deposited. 

The  extension  of  this  faculty  of  "  specific  accumula- 
tion "  to  all  physiological  phenomena  in  general  is  in 
harmony  with  the  hypothesis  that  nervous  energy  is 
the  basis  of  all  vital  phenomena.  If  in  the  psycho- 
mnemic  phenomena  properly  so  called  the  fact  of  the 
nervous  energy  produced  by  the  discharge  or  "  excita- 
tion "  of  the  respective  centre  appears  in  the  foreground, 
while  the  specific  physico-chemical  phenomena  accom- 
panying this  discharge  remain  in  the  background,  so 
that  until  quite  recently  they  were  almost  completely 
overlooked,  yet — according  to  Claude  Bernard's  funda- 
mental concept  of  the  essential  identity  of  all  the  differ- 


AFFECTIVE  TENDENCIES  105 

ent  forms  of  irritability  of  living  matter — the  difference 
between  psychic  and  physiological  phenomena  properly 
so  called  would  be  one  of  degree  alone  and  not  of  kind. 
In  fact,  if  in  the  latter  the  specific  physico-chemical 
phenomena  (muscular  contraction,  glandular  secretion, 
etc.)  would  appear  with  the  greater  distinctness,  a 
specific  nervous  discharge  would  nevertheless  likewise 
accompany  this  physiological  activity,  but  would  re- 
main much  less  perceptible.  In  this  manner  I  have 
tried  to  explain  the  fundamental  mnemic  property  of 
all  living  matter,  emphasized  of  late  by  Butler,  Hering, 
Semon,  and  Francis  Darwin  in  particular,  a  property 
which  is  capable  of  explaining  a  whole  series  of  the  most 
important  and  characteristic  biological  phenomena 
proceeding  from  it  either  directly  or  indirectly.1 

With  this  extension  of  the  mnemic  faculty  to  all  the 
elementary  physiological  processes  we  are  led  up  to 
a  somatic  or  visceral  theory  of  the  fundamental  affective 
tendencies  in  the  following  sense  :  The  tendency  towards 
physiological  invariability  or  toward  the  restoration  of 
this  or  that  former  physiological  state,  corresponding 
to  this  or  that  previous  environment,  would  be  due  to 
an  infinite  number  of  elementary  specific  accumulations, 
differing  from  point  to  point  of  the  body  and  whose 

1  Eugenic  Rignano,  Sur  la  transmissibilite  ties  caracteres  acquis. 
Hypothese  d'une  centro-epigenese,  Paris,  Alcan,  1906 ;  Italian  edition, 
Bologna,  Zanichelli,  1907 ;  German  edition,  Leipzig,  Engelmann,  1907  ; 
English  ^edition,  Chicago,  The  Open  Court  Publishing  Company,  1911. 
See  especially  the  last  chapter  :  The  Mnemic  and  the  Vital  Phenomena. 

See  also  Rignano,  Die  Zentro-cpigenese  und  die  nervOse  Natur  dtr 
Lebenserscheinung,  "  Zeitschrift  fur  den  Ausbau  der  Entwicklungslehre," 
II,  1908,  Heft  viii-ix. 

And  Rignano,  La  memoire  biologique  en  Inergttique,  in  "Scientia," 
1909,  XI-3,  and  in  "  Annalender  Naturphilosophie,"  VIII,  1909  (reproduced 
in  the  preceding  Essay). 


106        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

combined  potential  energy  would  form,  as  it  were,  a 
"  force  of  gravitation  "  towards  that  environment  or 
those  surrounding  conditions  which  allow  the  conserva- 
tion or  restoration  of  the  combined  physiological  system 
represented  by  all  these  elementary  accumulations. 

Naturally,  in  organisms  possessing  a  nervous  system, 
side  by  side  with  each  of  these  affective  tendencies  of 
purely  somatic  origin  and  seat,  there  would  arise  and 
be  gradually  developed,  co-operating  with  it,  and  often 
acting  as  a  substitute  for  it,  a  perfectly  similar  tendency 
represented  by  the  corresponding  mnemic  accumula- 
tions, deposited  in  this  particular  zone  of  the  nervous 
system,  and  particularly  of  the  brain,  directly  communi- 
cating with  the  respective  points  of  the  body.  In  man, 
for  instance,  this  zone  would  be  Flechsig's  "  Korpers- 
fuhlsphare,"  to  which  in  certain  cases  would  also  be 
added  the  frontal  zone.1 

Once  these  cerebral  mnemic  accumulations  have 
arisen  phylogenetically  by  direct  somatic  action,  they 
will  eventually,  even  if  all  communication  with  the 
body  were  severed,  represent  in  themselves  the 
former  affective  somatic  tendency  to  which  they  owed 
their  origin.  This  is  due  to  the  two  fundamental 
mnemic  laws  of  the  gradual  independence  of  the  part 
with  respect  to  the  whole,  and  of  the  substitution  of  the 
part  for  the  whole — laws  arising  directly  from  the  fact 
that  each  specific  elementary  accumulation  may  exist 
independently  when  once  deposited.  Sherrington's 
"  spinal  "  dog,  for  instance,  continued  to  display  the 
same  repugnance  to  the  flesh  of  other  dogs,  and  to 

1  P.  Flechsig,  Gehirn  und  Seele,  Leipzig,  Veil  &  Co.,  1906,  pp.  19, 
21-22,  82,  99-100, 


AFFECTIVE  TENDENCIES  107 

exhibit  other  similar  affectivities  and  even  the  same 
emotions,  all  undoubtedly  of  visceral  phyletic  origin, 
just  as  a  normal  dog  would  do.1 

But  this  co-operation  and  this  possibility  of  an 
eventual  substitution  of  the  affective  tendency  whose 
seat  is  in  the  brain  for  the  corresponding  affective 
tendency  whose  seat  is  somatic,  do  not  prevent  the 
former  from  usually  remaining  in  the  absolute  control 
of  the  latter.  Accordingly,  modern  psychology  gener- 
ally admits  that  the  affective  life  "  has  its  cause  below, 
in  the  variations  of  the  coenesthesis,  which  is  in  itself 
a  resultant,  a  combination  of  vital  actions."  z 

These  affective  tendencies,  whose  seat  is  in  the  brain, 
will  also,  consequently,  conserve  the  two  fundamental 
properties  due  to  their  visceral  origin  :  that  of  possess- 
ing a  "  diffuse "  seat,  and  that  of  being  eminently 
"  subjective." 

In  fact,  every  physiological  system  which  is  produced 
within  the  body  in  such  a  way  as  to  be  in  equilibrium 
and  to  assume  a  stationary  state  with  reference  to  its 
environment,  will  permeate  the  whole  organism,  and 
therefore  the  whole  of  that  part  of  the  brain  in  which 
the  organism  is  reflected.  In  contrast  to  the  mnemic 
sense-accumulations,  each  of  which  we  have  every  reason 
to  believe  has  its  seat  distinctly  localized  at  a  single 
point  or  in  a  single  centre  of  the  cortex  of  the  brain, 
everything  leads  us  then  to  conclude  that  each  affective 


1  Cf.  C.  Sherrington,  The  Integrative  Action  of  the  Nervous  System, 
London,  Constable,  1906,  pp.  260-5 ;  and  Lloyd  Morgan's  apposite 
criticism  in  Animal  Behaviour,  2nd  edition,  London,  Arnold,  1908, 
p.  292.  See  also  Revault  d'Allonnes,  Les  inclinations,  Paris,  Alcan,  1908, 
pp.  101  et  seq. 

a  Ribot,  op.  cit. :  Psych,  des  sent.,  p.  10. 


io8        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

tendency  must  be,  on  the  contrary,  made  up  of  an 
infinitely  large  number  of  elementary  mnemic  accumu- 
lations, deposited  respectively  at  every  point  of  the 
body  and  at  every  corresponding  point  of  the  brain. 

Finally,  the  affective  tendencies  owe  to  their  physio- 
logical origin  also  their  eminently  "  subjective " 
character,  from  the  fact  that  the  organism  finds  itself 
potentially  equipped  with  this  or  that  "  idiosyncratic  " 
affective  tendency,  with  this  or  that  "  nostalgic " 
desire,  according  to  the  various  environments  or  parti- 
cular surrounding  conditions  to  which  the  species  and 
the  individual  were  exposed  for  a  longer  or  shorter 
time  in  the  past,  i.e.  according  to  their  individual 
history. 

Hence  result  the  "  subjectivity "  and  the  infinite 
variety  manifested  in  the  needs,  appetites,  desires, 
and  consequently  in  all  that  is  subject  to  "  affective 
evaluation." 


Ill 


In  support  of  the  hypothesis  I  have  sketched  of  the 
mnemic  nature  of  all  affective  tendencies  in  general,  I 
may  invoke  other  examples  of  more  special  affectivities 
which  also  have  originated  by  way  of  "  habit,"  but 
which  reflect  more  particular  relations  of  environment, 
affecting  only  one  part  or  other  of  the  organism,  and 
exercising  an  action  which  is  periodic,  or  in  some  measure 
intermittent  rather  than  continuous.  They  are  especi- 
ally in  evidence  in  the  higher  animals,  and  particularly 
in  man. 


AFFECTIVE  TENDENCIES  109 

B  Maternal  love  will  suffice  as  a  typical  instance. 
;  It  is  clear  that  the  habit  of  certain  parasitic  relations, 
or  of  symbiosis  in  general,  with  the  progeny,  a  habit 
continued  for  a  long  series  of  generations,  has  become 
gradually  changed  mnemically  into  affective  tendency 
towards  these  relations.  "  Comparative  ethology,"  in 
the  words  of  Giard,  "  shows  us  very  clearly  that  the 
relations  between  the  parent  organism  and  its  off- 
spring are  in  principle  absolutely  the  same  as  those 
existing  between  an  animal  and  its  parasite,  and  that 
after  a  period  of  unstable  equilibrium,  in  which  one 
or  other  of  the  organisms  in  contact  suffers  to  the 
advantage  of  its  companion,  there  is  a  tendency  to 
the  establishment  of  a  definitive  position  of  mutual 
equilibrium."  * 

This  applies,  for  instance,  to  relations  of  internal 
incubation,  which,  though  at  first  sought  and  effected 
by  the  embryo  itself  in  one  or  other  stage  of  its  develop- 
ment, for  the  purpose  of  food  or  shelter  or  some  other 
advantage,  and  at  first  endured  by  the  parent  organism, 
either  father  or  mother,  finally  become  for  that  parent 
so  many  actual  "  needs." 

This  also  holds  good  in  the  case  of  the  relations  of 
external  incubation,  arising  at  first  from  some  special 
circumstance,  and  becoming  in  this  way  a  habit.  For 
instance,  the  attachment  shown  by  the  female  spider 
Chiracanthium  carnifex  for  her  nest,  whether  her  own 
or  one  of  which  she  has  taken  possession,  increases 
with  time,  i.e.  with  the  duration  of  her  occupation  of 
it.  Thus  "  maternal  love  "  in  her  case  seems  to  be  at 

1  A.  Giard,  Les  origincs  dc  -I' amour  materncl,  "  Revue  des  I  dees," 
April  15,  1908,  p.  256. 


no        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

bottom  merely  her  attachment  to  a  house  to  which  she 
has  grown  accustomed.1 

And  so  with  the  brooding  of  birds  and  of  certain 
reptiles,  which  at  first  is  due  to  the  pleasant  sensation 
which  the  cool  contact  of  the  eggs  gives  to  the  feverish 
condition  accompanying  the  generative  functions,  but 
which  by  habit  has  become  in  itself  an  instinctive 
aff  activity.2 

Finally,  as  far  as  lactation  is  concerned,  the  young, 
by  sucking  the  secretions  of  the  perspiratory  glands  on 
the  breast  of  the  brooding  mother,  have  gradually 
transformed  the  latter  into  lactiferous  glands,  and  they 
have  so  accustomed  the  mother  to  this  sucking,  that  a 
genuine  and  characteristic  need  to  be  sucked  has  arisen. 
"  In  mammals  it  is  in  the  phenomena  of  lactation  that 
we  must  look  for  the  origin  of  the  symbiotic  relations 
uniting  mother  and  child.  The  physiological  disorders 
of  pregnancy  and  parturition  lead,  among  other  very 
curious  trophic  effects,  to  a  hyper-secretion  of  the 
mammary  glands,  which  are,  as  we  know,  only  a  special- 
ized localization  of  the  sebaceous  glands  of  the  skin. 
The  young  animal  licks  and  sucks  this  secretion,  which 
is  its  first  food,  and  alleviates  the  discomfort  of  the 
mother,  thus  becoming  a  means  to  her  comfort."  3 

That  the  need  for  lactation  is  the  origin  of  maternal 
love  is  seen  from  the  fact  that  if  she  is  deprived  of  her 
offspring  she  will  feel  the  need  of  finding  foster-nurs- 
lings. "  The  necessity  of  getting  rid  of  a  troublesome 


1  Lecaillon,  Sur  la  biologic  et  la  psychologic  d'une  araigne'e,  "Annee 
psychologique,"  loth  year,  Paris,  Masson,  1904,  pp.  63-83. 
a  A.  Giard,  op.  cit.,  p.  226. 
3  Ibid.,  pp.  269-70. 


AFFECTIVE  TENDENCIES  in 

secretion  is  powerful  enough  to  induce  the  mother 
deprived  of  her  young  to  steal  the  offspring  of  another 
mother.  These  robberies  have  been  noticed  even  in 
the  case  of  mothers  who  were  still  suckling  their  own 
offspring,  the  satisfaction  of  a  need  leading  them,  as 
is  generally  the  case,  to  seek  a  greater  satisfaction 
which  may  even  lead  to  excess."  I 

In  the  cases  observed  by  Lloyd  Morgan,  this  need  of 
the  mother  takes  the  form  of  a  maternal  love  full  of 
solicitude  for  the  nourishment  of  her  young,  and  it  is 
even  possible  that  it  really  represents  the  initial  stage 
of  disinterested  affection  for  the  young  :  "I  have  seen 
both  bitches  and  cats  get  up  and  again  lie  down  so  as 
to  bring  the  teats  into  closer  proximity  to  the  mouth 
of  any  young  Which  failed  to  find  them.  It  has  been 
noticed  by  a  man  who  is  a  remarkably  good  observer 
and  has  had  much  to  do  with  animals,  and  also  by 
myself,  that  when  a  lamb  is  weakly  and  fails  to  find  the 
teat,  the  mother  not  infrequently  uses  its  shoulders, 
head,  and  neck  as  a  lever  to  place  the  lamb  on  its 
legs ;  and,  having  accomplished  this,  straddles  over 
the  lamb,  and  brings  the  teats  against  its  lips  ;  and 
these  efforts  are  continued  until  the  little  animal 
sucks."  3 

This  is  a  characteristic  example  which  shows  us  clearly 
how  the  necessity  of  getting  rid  of  the  milk  must  end 
in  arousing  an  affection  for  the  nursling  as  a  usual 
means  of  attaining  this  end,  just  as  the  need  of 
getting  rid  of  the  germinal  substance,  as  we  have 
seen  above,  must  produce  an  affectivity  for  the 

1  A.  Giard,  ibid.,  p.  270. 

*  Lloyd  Morgan,  Habit  and  Instinct,  New  York,  Arnold,  1896,  p.  115. 


ii2       ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

opposite  sex,  also  as  an  habitual  means  of  eliminating 
this  substance. 

And,  in  fact,  just  as  "  sexual  attraction  "  ceases  as 
soon  as  the  germinal  substance  has  been  got  rid  of,  so, 
in  most  mammals,  "  maternal  affection "  disappears 
as  soon  as  the  need  for  lactation  is  no  longer  felt : 
"  Maternal  affection  does  not  in  general  survive  the 
causes  that  produced  it,  and  very  vague  traces  of  it 
are  noticed  as  soon  as  lactation  is  over."  x 

Finally,  the  fact  that  maternal  is  stronger  than 
paternal  love,  and  that  the  love  of  parents  for  their 
children  is  stronger  than  that  of  children  for  their 
parents,  confirms  the  hypothesis  that  all  these  affec- 
tivities  have  arisen  exclusively  by  way  of  habit,  for  it 
shows  that  affection  for  those  with  whom  we  have 
given  relations  is  the  more  intense  in  proportion  as  the 
relations  are  more  numerous  and  more  continuous. 
"  In  animal  life  taken  as  a  whole,"  observes  Ribot, 
"  paternal  love  is  rare  and  inconstant,  and  among  the 
lower  representatives  of  humanity  it  is  a  very  feeble 
sentiment  and  forms  but  a  slight  bond."  It  is  met  with 
only  in  sexual  unions  that  are  stable,  in  which  life  in 
common  "  creates  a  current  of  affection  in  ratio  to  the 
services  rendered."  2 

"  Every  one  recognizes,"  remarks  Pillon  in  his  turn, 
"  that  parental  love  exceeds  in  intensity  that  of  children 
for  their  parents,  and  that  of  the  two  parents  it  is  the 
mother  who  has  the  stronger  love  for  the  child." — 
'  This  is  because  in  the  mother's  case,  much  more 
than  that  of  the  father,  by  reason  of  her  special 

1  A.  Giard,  op.  cit.,  p.  273. 

*  Ribot,  op.  cit. ;  Psych,  des  sent.,  pp.  285,  286. 


AFFECTIVE  TENDENCIES  113 

functions,  the  love  for  the  child  is  nourished  and 
strengthened  by  the  continuous  performance  of  the 
acts  it  dictates."  x 

But  maternal  love,  and  family  love  in  general,  thus 
arising  out  of  given  relations  which  become  habitual, 
represent  but  one  particular  case  of  a  universal  law. 
Every  other  relation,  in  fact,  established  with  things 
or  with  persons,  however  special  it  may  be,  becomes  a 
thing  "  desired  "  as  it  passes  into  a  habit.  In  other 
words,  in  every  environmental  relation,  whether  general 
or  particular,  we  find  a  verification  of  Lehmann's  law  of 
"  the  indispensability  of  the  habitual,"  which  he  estab- 
lished for  every  stimulus  to  which  one  grows  accustomed, 
and  in  the  absence  of  which  /we  become  conscious  of 
a  "  need."  a 

A  friend  once  wrote  to  G.  E.  Miiller  :  "  I  have  in 
my  room  a  small  clock  which  does  not  run  more  than 
twenty-four  hours  without  being  wound  up.  So  it 
often  stops,  and  when  that  happens  I  notice  it  at  once, 
while  naturally  I  do  not  notice  it  at  all  when  it  is  going. 
The  first  time  this  occurred  I  felt  something  like  this  :  I 
suddenly  became  aware  of  an  indefinite  unrest,  a  kind 
of  emptiness,  and  I  could  not  say  at  the  moment  what 
was  the  cause.  It  was  only  after  some  reflection  that 
I  discovered  the  cause  in  the  stopping  of  the  clock."  3 

Besides,  we  all  have  noticed  that  habit  gives  pleasure 
to  things  which  at  first  were  disagreeable,  and  certain 

1  F.  Pillon,  Sur  la  mtmoirc  et  I' imagination  affective^  "  Annee  philoso- 
phique,"  I7th  year  (1906),  Paris,  Alcan,  1907,  pp.  69-70. 

a  A.  Lehmann,  Die  Hauptgesetze  des  menschlichen  Gefuhlslebens,  Leipzig, 
Reisland,  1892,  pp.  194  et  seq. 

3  G.  E.  Miiller,  Zur  Theorie  der  sinnlichen  Aufnterksamkeit,  Leipzig, 
Edelmann  (no  date),  p.  128. 

8 


H4 

habits  contracted  in  a  man's  life  become  needs  as 
peremptory  as  those  we  call  "  natural."  "  Smokers, 
snuff-takers,  and  those  who  chew  tobacco  furnish 
familiar  instances  of  the  way  in  which  long  persistence 
in  a  sensation  not  originally  pleasurable  makes  it 
pleasurable — the  sensation  itself  remaining  unchanged. 
The  like  happens  with  various  foods  and  drinks,  which, 
at  first  distasteful,  are  afterwards  greatly  relished  if 
frequently  taken."  I 

Hence  arises  the  longing  we  experience  when  some- 
thing to  which  we  are  accustomed  is  suddenly  missed. 
"  In  some  animals  there  is  produced  a  kind  of  home- 
sickness, expressed  by  a  violent  '  desire '  to  return 
to  the  old  haunts,  or  by  a  slow  pining  away  resulting 
from  the  absence  of  persons  or  things  to  which  they  have 
grown  accustomed."  * 

Thus,  as  we  have  seen  in  the  case  of  family  love, 
similar  but  more  comprehensive  affectivities  may  be 
caused  by  habit  to  originate  and  take  root  in  animals 
and  in  man — gregariousness,  sociability,  friendship,  and 
the  like.  '  The  perception  of  our  fellow-creatures, 
perpetually  seen,  heard,  and  smelled,  will  come  to  form 
a  predominant  part  of  consciousness — so  predominant 
a  part  that  the  absence  of  it  will  inevitably  cause  dis- 
comfort." 3 

Finally,  we  know  what  a  very  great  influence  is  exer- 
cised by  habits  of  conduct  contracted  in  the  home  during 
the  earliest  years  of  child-life — of  "  nurture  "  in  its 

1  Herbert  Spencer,  The  Principles  of  Psychology,  4th  edition,  London, 
Williams  &  Norgate,  1899,  vol.  i,  p.  287. 

3  Th.  Ribot,  Essai  sur  I  'imagination  crfatrice,  3rd  edition,  Paris,  Alcan, 
1008,  pp.  78-9. 

3  Spencer,  op.  cit. :  The  Principles  of  Psychology,  vol.  ii,  p.  627. 


AFFECTIVE  TENDENCIES  115 

wide  meaning,  as  Gallon  would  say — in  awakening  and 
developing  sentiments  and  moral  tendencies  which,  as 
though  they  were  "  innate,"  leave  upon  the  whole  life 
an  indelible  mark.1 

From  these  few  examples,  which  I  have  given  simply 
as  illustrations  of  my  thesis,  we  see  how  profound  is 
the  truth  contained  in  the  adage  that  "  habit  is  second 
nature." 

But  if  we  can  see  to  a  certain  extent  before  our  very 
eyes  this  origin  by  way  of  habit  of  affectivities  of 
the  most  varied  nature,  we  are  justified  in  going  further, 
and  in  attributing  a  similar  mnemic  origin  to  all  the 
affective  tendencies,  since  innate  and  acquired  tendencies 
do  not  differ  in  their  nature.  We  are  authorized  to 
suppose  that,  just  as,  in  the  case  of  morphological 
evolution,  Lamarckianism  is  quite  justified  in  con- 
cluding, from  the  few  cases  of  functional  adaptation 
acquired  during  life  that  it  has  succeeded  in  observ- 
ing, that  the  whole  structure  of  the  organism  must 
be  the  outcome  of  an  infinite  series  of  similar 
functional  adaptations. 

We  may  therefore  complete  the  adage  by  adding 
that,  inversely,  "  nature  "  is  nothing  but  "  first  habit." 


IV 


In  confirmation  of  the  hypothesis  of  the  mnemic 
origin  and  nature  of  all  the  affective  tendencies,  there 
now  intervenes  one  of  their  very  general  properties, 

1  F.    Gallon,    Inquiries    into  Human    Faculty  and    its    Development 
London,  Macmillan,  1883,  pp.  208-16. 


n6        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

that  of  transference  (Ribot),  which  is  also  itself  essen- 
tially mnemic,  and  by  which  all  other  affectivities  are 
derived  from  those  of  direct  mnemic  origin,  and  thus 
come  to  have  an  indirect  mnemic  origin. 

For  by  the  fundamental  mnemic  property,  already 
frequently  mentioned,  of  the  substitution  of  a  part  for 
the  whole,  it  happens  that  mere  parts  or  fragments  of 
given  environmental  relations,  which  at  first  were 
striven  for  in  their  totality,  or  "  analogous  "  environ- 
mental relations,  i.e.  resembling  only  partly  those 
desired,  or  again  environmental  relations  constituting 
the  "  means  "  adapted  to  the  attainment  of  an  "  end," 
and  being  therefore  its  necessary  precursors,  or  finally 
environmental  relations  always  accompanying  that 
"  end  " — all  evoke  the  affectivity  of  this  original  "  end." 
This  affectivity  is  thus  "  transferred  "  from  the  whole 
to  the  part.  And  this  affectivity  for  the  part  is  then 
strengthened  because  this  partial  relation,  which  at 
first  is  sought  as  a  "  substitute  "  for  the  whole,  becomes 
in  its  turn  an  habitual  environmental  relation,  hence- 
forth desired  or  sought  for  its  own  sake,  quite  apart 
from  the  original  affective  "  transference." 

This  is  what  has  happened,  as  I  have  already  shown, 
with  respect  to  the  copulation  of  the  two  sexes,  in  so 
far  as  it  is  the  habitual  means  of  getting  rid  of 
the  germinal  substance,  and  also  with  regard  to  the 
secondary  sexual  relations  as  phenomena  usually 
accompanying  this  copulation.  The  "  conquest  "  of 
the  opposite  sex,  in  its  turn  a  necessary  means  for 
the  satisfaction  of  sexual  hunger  or  appetite,  finally 
becomes  with  some  individuals  an  end  in  itself.  As 
cases  in  point  we  have  seduction  for  the  sake  of  seduc- 


AFFECTIVE  TENDENCIES  117 

tion,  the  "  sexual  vanity  "  of  both  male  and  female, 
and  the  other  similar  affectivities. 

The  same  holds  good  of  the  tearing  to  pieces  of  an 
animal's  prey,  at  first  the  habitual  means  of  satisfying 
hunger,  which  finally  gave  rise  to  cruelty  for  the  sake 
of  cruelty  :  "  Half  the  animal  world  lives  on  prey ; 
and  as  there  is  a  pleasure  in  eating,  so  there  must  be  a 
pleasure  in  killing.  And  the  same  pleasure  is  aroused 
at  the  sight  of  all  the  signs  of  defeat,  the  helpless  struggles 
and  the  dying  movements  of  the  victim."  x 

And  as  the  sequel  of  further  transference  we  have 
in  man  the  desire  of  victory  for  its  own  sake,  the 
thirst  .  for  dominion,  the  lust  of  power,  the  passion 
for  fame  and  glory,  and  the  endeavour  to  surpass 
one's  fellows. 

In  these  and  in  all  other  similar  cases  of  "  affective 
transferences  "  to  environmental  relations  ever  becoming 
less  material  and  more  moral,  besides  the  real  and  proper 
"  affective  transference "  which  transforms  the  part 
into  a  new  "  end,"  we  find,  in  man  and  the  higher 
animals,  the  unceasing  co-operation  of  the  intellectual 
development. 

The  intellect,  in  fact,  is  constantly  discovering  new 
and  unsuspected  analogies  between  the  most  diverse 
phenomena,  even  between  material  and  moral  pheno- 
mena, thus  extending  to  the  one  the  affectivities  that 
have  been  experienced  towards  the  other.  For  instance, 
the  physical  distaste  for  certain  foods  recognized  as 
unhealthy  by  taste  or  smell  is  extended  to  certain 
objects  which  can  only  be  touched  or  seen  (viscous 

1  Bain,  The  Emotions  and  the  Will,  4th  edition,  London,  Longmans, 
Green  &  Co.,  1899,  p.  65. 


bodies),  and  then  by  further  analogy  to  simple  "  objects  " 
or  relations  of  a  moral  order.1 

At  the  same  time  the  intellect,  with  its  ever-increasing 
foresight  of  external  phenomena  as  effects  of  given 
causes,  continues  to  discover  new  more  or  less  indirect 
and  complex  means  for  attaining  certain  ends,  and 
thereby  opens  up  for  "  affective  transference  "  an  ever 
wider  sphere  of  action.  The  weapon,  for  instance, 
which  was  first  invented  by  man  as  a  means  for  self- 
preservation,  has  made  possible  that  affective  trans- 
ference to  itself  which  is  typical  in  the  warrior  and  the 
hunter ;  and  the  land  which  provides  food  for  man  has 
made  possible  that  intense  love  of  the  soil  which  is  to 
be  found  among  the  peasantry. 

Further,  the  intellect,  with  its  ever-increasing  antici- 
pation of  internal  psychic  processes,  gives  rise  to  a 
whole  series  of  new  affectivities  with  the  object  of 
preventing  future  affective  tendencies  from  remaining 
unsatisfied.  For  instance,  the  anticipation  of  future 
hunger  gives  rise  even  in  the  satiated  man  to  a  direct 
affectivity  towards  storing  up  and  retaining  in  his 
possession  the  food  that  is  left  after  his  meal.  This 
leads  to  the  sense  of  .property  in  general,  and  so  also 
the  anticipation  of  the  innumerable  other  desires  now 
cherished  by  civilized  man  develops  in  him  an  intense 
longing  for  wealth,  the  lust  for  lucre,  and  similar 
passions.* 

Finally,  it  is  the  intellect  that  makes  possible  that 
infinite  variety  of  delicate  "  shades  of  difference " 

1  Ribot,  op.  cit.  :  Psych,  des  sent.  p.  212  ;  ditto,  op  cit. :  Essai  sur  les 
passions,  pp.  65  et  seq. 

a  Spencer,  op.  cit.:  The  Principles  of  Psychology,  vol.  i.  pp  488  et  seq.  ; 
Ribot,  op.  cit.  :  Psych,  des  sent.,  pp.  no,  269-70. 


AFFECTIVE  TENDENCIES  119 

which  affective  tendencies  may  assume  in  man.  For  it 
has  the  power  of  considering  simultaneously  or  almost 
simultaneously,  from  different  points  of  view,  each 
environmental  situation,  as  soon  as  it  becomes  slightly 
complicated,  and  thus  succeeds  in  evoking  at  the  same 
time  a  variety  of  affectivities.  These  then,  as  Bain 
would  say,  by  association,  combination,  confluence, 
interference,  and  reciprocal  inhibition,  ultimately  give 
rise  to  an  exceedingly  complex  affectivity,  capable, 
therefore,  of  the  finest  possible  gradations  from  one 
case  to  another  according  to  the  number  and  quality 
of  its  components. 

Thus,  for  instance,  the  instinct  of  self-preservation 
in  its  purely  defensive  form  had  already  developed  in 
animals  fear,  anxiety,  and  similar  feelings.  In  man  it 
produces  all  the  propitiatory  affectivities  in  innu- 
merable varieties  and  shades — prostration,  humility, 
hypocrisy,  flattery,  and  the  like.  Even  the  religious 
sentiment  in  its  lowest  forms  is  directly  derived  from 
such  a  propitiatory  affectivity.  The  loftier  religious 
sentiment  and  the  similar  feeling  experienced  in  the 
presence  of  the  sublime,  are  the  later  and  most  highly 
developed  forms  of  the  same  thing.1 

Similarly,  from  the  instinct  of  self-preservation  in 
its  twofold  form,  at  once  offensive  and  defensive,  had 
already  developed  in  the  higher  animals  the  instinct 
of  attack  and  all  the  different  varieties  of  counter- 
attack. In  man  this  instinct  has  assumed  the  most 
varied  forms  and  shades,  from  the  deepest  hatred  to 
a  scarcely  perceptible  antipathy,  from  the  rage  of 

*  Cf.  Ribot,  op.  cit.  :  Psych,  des  sent.,  p.  100  ;  Eugenio   Rignano,  Le 
ph&nomlnt  «/*#£«#,,  "Scientia,"  III-i,  1900  (see  Essay  VI  in  this  volume). 


120        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

destruction  to  the  merest  envy,  from  the  most  violent 
feeling  of  vengeance  to  the  slightest  trace  of  resent- 
ment. The  noble  sentiment  of  justice  itself  can 
be  identified  as  a  very  remote  product  of  the  same 
instinct.1 

The  high  degree  of  complexity  which  may  thus  be 
reached  is  shown,  for  instance,  by  maternal  love, 
since  from  the  purely  physical  necessity  for  lactation 
it  has  grown  to  the  tenderest  feelings  of  the  purest 
altruism,  and  especially,  too,  by  the  transformation 
of  conjugal  affection  from  the  gratification  of  a 
coarse  and  brutal  sexual  appetite  to  the  harmonious 
co-operation  of  the  gentlest  and  most  delicate  of 
moral  affectivities.* 

It  will  be  seen  that  there  is  no  need  to  continue 
such  an  analysis  of  all  the  affectivities  and  of  all 
the  shades  of  difference  which  in  this  way  have 
arisen  and  been  developed  in  the  higher  animals, 
and  especially  in  man.  Let  these  few  very  cursory 
indications  suffice  to  explain  the  fact  that  as  soon 
as  the  organism  has  acquired,  in  the  direct  mnemic 
way,  a  reserve  or  "  stock "  of  affective  tendencies, 
and  as  soon  as  the  intellect  has  attained  an  adequate 
development,  there  is  no  limit  to  the  number  of 
these  tendencies  which  may  be  derived  by  "  trans- 
ference "  and  by  "  combination,"  i.e.  by  indirect 
mnemic  way. 

1  Bain,  op.  cit.  :  The  Emotions  and  the  Will,  pp.  117  et  seq.  ;  Ribot, 
op.  cit.  :  Psych,  des  sent.,  pp.  229  et  seq.,  271  et  seq.  ;  ditto,  Problemes  de 
psychologic  affective,  Paris,  Alcan,  1910,  ch.  iii  :  L' Antipathic. 

*  Cf.  Spencer,  op.  cit.  :  The  Principles  of  Psychology,  vol.  i,  pp.  487  etseq. 


AFFECTIVE  TENDENCIES  121 


A  few  words  will  now  be  sufficient  to  mark  the  place 
of  the  affective  tendencies  among  the  fundamental 
psychic  phenomena  most  closely  connected  with  them, 
such  as  the  "  emotions,"  the  "  will,"  and  the  states  of 
"  pleasure  "  or  "  pain." 

"  Emotions  "  are  only  sudden  and  violent  modes  of 
setting  in  action  these  accumulated  energies  of  which 
the  affective  tendencies  consist.  Naturally  we  cannot 
always  establish  a  clear  distinction  between  the  affective 
tendencies  and  the  emotions,  because  the  former  are 
perceptible  neither  objectively  nor  subjectively  as  long 
as  they  are  maintained  in  the  potential  state,  and  become 
perceptible  only  as  they  come  into  action — and  this 
coming  into  action,  if  sudden  and  violent,  represents  the 
corresponding  emotion.  But  the  importance  and  the 
necessity  of  distinguishing  clearly  between  emotions 
and  affective  tendencies — a  distinction  which  most 
psychologists  have  entirely  neglected  to  make — lie 
in  the  fact  that  one  and  the  same  affective  tendency 
may,  according  to  external  circumstances,  give  rise 
to  the  most  diverse  emotions,  to  the  most  varying 
degrees  of  their  intensity,  and  even  to  no  emotion  at 
all,  properly  so  called. 

For  instance,  if  we  see  a  vehicle  coming  towards  us 
we  quietly  step  out  of  its  way  ;  but  if,  on  the  contrary, 
it  appears  to  us  quite  suddenly  at  a  corner  of  the  road, 
we  experience  a  very  strong  emotional  shock.  And  the 
same  affective  tendency  of  the  dog  towards  a  piece  of 
meat  may  give  rise  to  flight,  anger,  or  the  careful 


132        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

and  coolly  calculating  search  for  a  safe  hiding-place, 
according  to  the  circumstances  which  threaten  his 
toothsome  meal. 

In  short,  every  emotion,  as  Stout  rightly  remarks, 
always  presupposes  an  affective  tendency ;  but  the 
reciprocal  is  not  true,  for  an  affective  tendency, 
even  when  on  its  way  to  realization,  may  imply  no 
emotion.1 

Every  affective  tendency  "  impels  "  to  action ;  it  is 
what  "sets  going"  the  organ  of  motion,  either  directly 
as  in  the  lower  organisms,  or  by  means  of  the  nervous 
system  as  in  the  higher.  So  from  the  first  moment  of 
its  realization  it  presents  itself  as  a  "  movement  in  the 
nascent  state  "  (Ribot). 

If  its  translation  into  action  is  sudden  and  intense, 
the  action  of  the  locomotor  muscles  is  accompanied 
also  by  that  of  all  the  viscera.  This  "  visceral  co- 
operation," which  thus  takes  place  in  the  emotions 
properly  so  called,  is  not  due  solely,  as  Sherrington 
maintains,  to  the  fact  that  the  rapidity  and  vigour 
with  which  the  muscles  are  set  in  motion  involves  the 
immediate  and  intensive  action  of  the  viscera  which 
furnish  the  muscles  with  the  material  for  the  recupera- 
tion of  their  energy  ;  but  also  and  especially  because 
there  is,  as  it  were,  an  overflow  of  nervous  energy, 
which,  suddenly  released  in  great  quantities,  spreads 
and  pours  forth  in  numerous  other  outlets  than  those 
which  are  closely  connected  with  the  locomotor 
apparatus.3 

1  G.  F.  Stout,  A  Manual  of  Psychology,  4th  impression,  London,  Olive, 
1907,  pp.  306  et  seq. 

"  Cf.  C.  S.  Sherrington,  op.  cit.  :  The  Integrative  Action  of  the  Nervous 
System,  pp.  265  et  seq. 


AFFECTIVE  TENDENCIES  123 

And  this  visceral  disturbance  thus  produced  by  the 
sudden  and  intense  affective  impulse  is  echoed  centri- 
petally  in  the  brain  in  the  form  of  an  "  emotion  " — 
according  to  the  well-known  theory  of  James,  Lange, 
and  Sergi.1 

It  is  not,  then,  the  emotion  which  impels  us,  as 
Sherrington  asserts,  following  the  prevalent  deplorable 
confusion  of  affective  tendencies  with  emotions  ;  but, 
on  the  contrary,  it  is  the  affective  tendency  which 
gives  the  impulse,  and  emotion  is  but  the  reaction  of 
a  too  rapid  and  intense  realization  of  the  affective 
tendency. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  realization  of  the  affective 
tendency,  owing  to  external  circumstances  or  to  the 
psychic  constitution  of  the  individual,  is  neither  too 
sudden  nor  too  intense,  we  may  see  brought  into 
play  only  the  action  of  the  strictly  necessary  muscles, 
without  any  emotion  at  all.  In  these  cases,  the 
affective  tendency  thus  gives  a  greater  amount  of 
useful  work,  in  proportion  as  the  part  of  the  dis- 
charge which  is  lost  in  the  disorderly  and  useless 
movement  of  a  purely  emotive  character  is  smaller. 
That  is  precisely  why  it  is  just  the  "  unemotional " 
people  who  more  than  others  display  the  most 
tenacious,  the  most  intense,  and  the  most  profitable 
activity.2 

As  far  as  the  "will"  is  concerned,  an  act  of  volition 
takes  place  whenever  an  affective  tendency  to  a  future 
end  triumphs  over  an  affective  tendency  to  a  present 

1  W.  James,  What  is  an  Emotion  ?  "Mind,"  April  1884,  pp.  188-205  ; 
R.  d'Allonnes,  op.  cit.  :  Les  Inclinations,  pp.  108  et  seq. 

a  Cf.,  in  spite  of  the  difference  in  certain  points  of  view,  E.  Meumann) 
Intdligcnz  und  Wille,  Leipzig,  Quelle  und  Meyer,  1908,  pp.  181  et  seq. 


124       ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

end,  i.e.  whenever  a  far-sighted  affectivity  is  vic- 
torious over  one  that  is  short-sighted.  Thus  the 
man  who  is  sweating  and  panting  after  a  long  run, 
and  who  throws  himself  down  to  drink  greedily  from 
a  spring,  does  not  thereby  exercise  an  "  act  of 
will "  ;  that  term  belongs  rather  to  the  prudent 
man  who  abstains  from  slaking  his  burning  thirst 
for  fear  of  greater  ills  to  come.  Nor  is  an  "  act 
of  volition "  performed  when  an  exhausted  man 
throws  himself  down  to  rest,  but  rather  when  the 
mountain-climber  defies  his  own  fatigue  or  inertia  to 
reach  the  desired  summit.  And  what  demands  a  great 
"  effort  of  will  "  is  not  the  act  of  the  man  who  on  the 
slightest  provocation  hurls  himself  on  his  opponent 
with  insult  and  blows,  but  rather  the  act  of  the  man 
who,  being  master  of  himself,  bridles  his  just  anger 
until  he  has  coldly  estimated  in  its  remote  conse- 
quences the  most  appropriate  way  of  dealing  with 
the  offender. 

The  will  is  thus  at  bottom  nothing  but  a  true  and 
characteristic  affective  tendency,  which  by  its  far- 
sightedness checks  other  tendencies,  and  which  in  its 
turn,  like  all  other  affective  tendencies  in  general, 
impels  to  action.  "  There  is  always  present  in  the  action 
of  the  will,"  writes  Maudsley,  "  some  desire  of  a  good 
to  be  obtained  or  of  an  evil  to  be  shunned,  which 
imparts  its  driving  force."  z 

Two  extreme  instances  are  here  of  interest,  for 
they  include  all  other  cases.  The  first  may  be  divided 
into  two. 

Sometimes  one  of  the  affective  tendencies  is  so  strong 

1  Maudsley,  The  Physiology  of  Mind,  London,  Macmillan,  1876,  p.  339. 


AFFECTIVE  TENDENCIES  125 

and  persistent  that  it  constantly  dominates  all  the 
others,  strengthening  those  which  are  in  harmony  with 
it,  and  checking  all  those  which  are  opposed  to  it. 
Such  an  "  hypertrophied  "  affective  tendency  is  called 
"passion"  (Ribot,  Rendal).  If  directed  towards  some 
present  aim,  we  usually  say  that  it  "  destroys  the  will," 
because  it  successfully  resists  the  inhibitive  action  of 
every  other  affective  tendency  with  an  aim  in  the  future  ; 
while  if  its  own  aim  be  in  the  future  towards  an  "  ideal  " 
which  may  barely  be  attained  even  by  the  effort  of  a 
lifetime,  we  then  say  the  individual  is  "  tenacious," 
"  obstinate,"  "  unyielding,"  endowed  with  a  "  will  of 
iron,"  because  every  other  affective  tendency  with  an 
immediate  aim  in  view  dashes  itself  against  it  in  vain. 
In  other  cases,  on  the  contrary,  the  two  conflicting 
affectivities  may  nearly  balance  each  other.  At  one 
moment  the  far-sighted  tendency,  by  calling  up  in  the 
mind  new  consequences  in  the  future,  gains  more 
strength  and  seems  to  prevail ;  but  a  moment  later  the 
short-sighted  tendency,  by  discovering  new  or  more 
clearly  recognized  aspects  of  the  object  desired  for  the 
time  being,  becomes  more  intense  and  threatens  to 
get  the  upper  hand.  In  this  case  the  individual  falls 
into  a  state  of  what  is  called  "  indecision."  When  that 
happens  to  a  "  philosopher  "  who  observes  himself  by 
introspection,  he  will  be  struck  by  the  fact  that  the  two 
motives  which  would  incite  him  respectively  to  two 
different  actions,  by  balancing  each  other,  compel  him 
to  inaction,  and  that,  vice  versa,  the  slightest  and  most 
insignificant  psychic  fact  is  sufficient  to  give  one  of 
them  the  ascendancy  over  its  rival.  It  is  then  but  a 
step  to  the  subjective  illusion  that  a  mere  nothing,  a 


126        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

perfectly  arbitrary  fiat  on  his  part,  will  be  sufficient  to 
secure  to  one  of  them  the  ascendancy  over  the  other. 
This  is  the  subjective  illusion  of  "  free  will "  which,  as 
we  all  know,  has  for  ages  constituted  the  greatest  and 
most  difficult  problem  that  philosophy  has  been  called 
upon  to  solve. 

Finally,  to  come  to  the  consideration  of  "  pleasure  " 
and  "  pain,"  it  is  the  merit  of  the  modern  psychological 
school  that  it  has  shown  the  fallacy  of  the  old  theories 
that  the  fundamental  fact  of  animal  life  is  the  "  pursuit 
of  pleasure,"  i.e.  the  search  for  everything  pleasant 
and  the  avoidance  of  everything  that  is  disagreeable, 
and  of  having,  on  the  other  hand,  clearly  emphasized 
the  fact  that  "  agreeable "  and  "  painful "  states 
represent  only  the  superficial  part  of  the  affective 
life,  "  of  which  the  deep  element  consists  in  affective 
tendencies,  positive  and  negative." — "  These  are  the 
elementary  processes  of  the  affective  life,  of  which 
pleasure  and  pain  represent  only  the  satisfaction  or 
the  failure."  J 

And  as  to  every  "  satisfaction  "  of  an  affective  ten- 
dency would  correspond  an  activation  of  nervous 
energy,  and  as  each  "  disappointment "  would  corre- 
spond to  an  interruption  or  cessation  of  this  energy, 
"  pleasure  "  would  thus  in  the  long  run  correspond  to 
every  state  of  discharge  or  revival  of  the  vital  or  ner- 
vous energy,  and  "  pain  "  to  every  state  of  inhibition 
or  suppression  of  it. 

In  fact,  every  act  of  inhibiting  nervous  activity  is 
"  annoying  "  ;  every  too  perceptible  change  of  surround- 

1  Ribot.  op.  cit. :  Psych,  des  stnt.,  p.  2 ;  ditto,  op.  cit. :  Probl.  de  psych,  off., 
p.  16. 


AFFECTIVE  TENDENCIES  127 

ing  conditions  which  prevents  the  continuance  of  the 
hitherto  active  physiological  state  is  "  disagreeable  "  ; 
the  sudden  and  very  marked  change  of  environment 
which  produces  in  some  part  of  the  organism  the  com- 
plete arrest  or  entire  destruction  of  life  brings  "  pain  " 
or  "  anguish  "  ;  and  when  there  is  a  general  diminution 
of  vital  functions  within  his  organism,  the  individual 
is  "  sad  "  or  "  melancholy." 

Inversely  it  is  "  agreeable  "  to  exercise  the  muscles 
in  play  and  sport  ;  the  cessation  of  mental  strain  is  a 
"  relief  "  ;  the  return  to  the  ordinary  environment  and 
the  resumption  of  one's  habits  is  accompanied  with 
"  pleasure  "  ;  and  in  general  every  state  of  nervous 
dynamogeny  of  the  organism  is  full  of  "  joy  "  and 


Let  it  suffice  to  note  at  this  point  how  the  theory  of 
the  mnemic  genesis  of  all  affective  tendencies,  which  I 
have  endeavoured  to  develop  and  to  defend  in  these 
pages,  furnishes  an  additional  argument  in  support  of 
these  more  modern  psychological  views  upon  the  inmost 
nature  of  pleasure  and  pain.  For  the  nature  of  mnemic 
accumulations  attributed  to  affective  tendencies  implies 
that  the  fundamental  fact  of  affective  life  can  be  nothing 
but  the  tendency  of  these  accumulations  to  activate, 
a  tendency  identical  with  that  of  every  other  reserve 
of  potential  energy  ;  and  that  therefore  "  pain  "  and 
"  pleasure,"  "  agreeable  "  and  "  disagreeable  "  states, 
can  be  nothing  but  the  respective  superficial  and  sub- 
jective aspect  of  each  of  these  activations  or  of  their 
inhibitions. 

1  Ribot,  op.  cit.  :  Psych,  des  sent,  Part  I,  ch.  i,  ii,  iii,  and  in  particular 
pp.  52  et  seq.,  pp.  83  et  seq.  ;  Ostwald,  Vorlesungen  uber  Naturphilosophie, 
3rd  edition,  Leipzig,  Veit,  1905,  pp.  388  et  seq. 


128        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 


VI 


I  shall  close  these  short  notes  on  the  nature  of  the 
affective  tendencies  by  adding  a  few  remarks,  which 
seem  to  me  to  be  indispensable,  on  the  fundamental 
character  of  these  tendencies,  namely,  that  they  con- 
stitute as  it  were  a  force  determining  the  end  to  be 
attained  but  leaving  undetermined  the  path  to  be 
followed. 

Affective  tendencies  owe  this  property  of  gravitating 
towards  an  "  end "  without  any  preference  for  the 
"  means  "  to  the  fact  of  the  existence  in  a  potential 
state  of  a  given  physiological  system  or  state,  general 
or  partial,  which  has  been  already  determined  in  the 
past  by  the  outside  world  or  by  a  few  particular  environ- 
mental relations,  and  which  now  tends,  like  every  other 
kind  of  potential  energy,  to  become  active  again — as 
soon  as  it  is  "  released  "  by  the  permanence  or  the  return 
of  even  a  small  part  of  this  environment  or  of  these 
environmental  relations.  In  fact,  the  existence  of 
this  tendency  has  as  its  sole  result  the  gravitation  of 
the  organism  towards  that  environment  or  those  environ- 
mental relations  which  make  the  recurrence  pf  the 
activity  of  this  physiological  state  possible ;  but  it 
does  not  in  itself  imply  any  preferential  "  impulse  " 
towards  one  or  the  other  series  of  transitory  physio- 
logical states  or  movements,  which,  while  contingently 
capable  of  restoring  the  organism  to  the  desired  environ- 
ment, have  nevertheless  nothing  in  common  with  the 
definitive  physiological  state. 

It  is  only  when  a  series  of  movements  has  happened 


AFFECTIVE  TENDENCIES  129 

to  bring  back  the  organism  to  the  desired  environmental 
relations  earlier  than  any  other  series,  that  then,  from 
that  moment,  it  will  be  "  preferred  "  to  the  others  ;  a 
result  expressed  by  saying  that  the  affectivity  has 
exercised  a  "  choice  "  (James,  Baldwin,  and  the  Ameri- 
can school  in  general). 

Hence  it  will  be  only  from  that  moment  that  the 
affective  tendency  will  constitute  by  mnemic  associa- 
tion a  force  which  "  impels  "  these  movements  leading 
to  the  desired  end,  just  as  certain  reflex  movements 
"  impinge  "  one  on  the  other  (Sherrington) .  And  it 
will  be  therefore  only  from  that  moment  that  these 
movements  will  be  stimulated  to  self-reproduction 
(so  long  as  they  have  not  become  mechanical  in  the 
form  of  reflexes),  exclusively  under  the  influence  of  the 
corresponding  affectivity  or  of  the  equivalent  "  act  of 
volition." 

But  before  reaching  this  point,  the  affectivity  has  no 
tendency  to  discharge  in  one  series  of  movements 
rather  than  in  another.  From  this  arises  the  great 
difference  between  the  affective  tendency  or  the  act  of 
will  on  the  one  liand  and  the  reflex  on  the  other ;  the 
latter — in  which  the  act  so  "  chosen,"  if  often  repeated, 
gradually  becomes  mechanical  and  quite  autonomous — 
represents  a  tendency  to  discharge  along  one  given 
path,  already  determined  before  the  discharge.  The 
point  of  application  of  the  force  and  its  direction  are 
known  beforehand.  We  might  therefore  represent  it 
graphically  by  the  usual  arrow-head  used  to  represent 
the  forces  in  mechanics.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
affective  tendency  represents  a  force  of  which  we 
know  beforehand  merely  the  point  towards  which  it 

9 


130        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

tends,  and  not  its  point  of  application  and  direction. 
It  is  a  "  disposable  "  energy  which  may  be  applied 
indifferently  to  any  act  whatever  as  long  as  it 
leads  to  the  desired  end.  It  may  therefore  be  repre- 
sented at  the  same  time  quite  indefinitely  by  one  or 
other  of  the  infinite  number  of  arrow-heads  which  con- 
verge to  the  vertex  of  a  cone  and  fill  its  whole  volume. 

The  reflex,  therefore,  admits  of  but  one  solution. 
On  the  contrary — as  long  as  none  of  the  possible  move- 
ments has  chanced  to  take  place  and  has  given  rise  to  a 
choice,  or  as  long  as  numerous  equivalent  paths  are 
offered,  all  leading  to  the  same  goal — the  affectivity 
is  capable  of  a  very  large  and  indefinite  number  of 
solutions. 

This  possibility  of  numerous  solutions  constitutes 
the  "unforeseen,"  the  "anti-mechanical"  nature  of 
behaviour  dependent  on  the  affectivity  or  the  will,  as 
compared  with  the  predetermined  and  mechanical 
behaviour  of  reflex  movements,  or  of  such  complex 
combinations  of  reflexes  as  certain  instincts. 

Finally,  it  is  this  fundamental  property  of  the  affec- 
tive tendency  of  constituting  as  it  were  a  force  gravi- 
tating towards  that  environment  or  those  particular 
environmental  relations  that  allow  of  the  reactivation 
of  the  mnemic  accumulations  forming  this  very  affec- 
tivity, which  gives  to  this  environment  or  to  these 
particular  environmental  relations  the  appeafance  of  a 
vis  a  fronts  or  "  final  cause,"  essentially  different  in 
its  nature  from  the  vis  a  tergo  or  "  actual  cause,"  which 
alone  is  operative  in  the  inorganic  world.1 

'  Cf.  W.  James,  Principles  of  Psychology,  London,  Macmillan,  1901,  i, 
pp.  7  et  seq. 


AFFECTIVE  TENDENCIES  131 

"  The  organism,"  in  the  words  of  Jennings,  "  seems 
to  work  towards  a  definite  purpose.  In  other  words, 
the  final  result  of  its  action  seems  to  be  present  in  some 
way  from  the  beginning,  determining  what  the  action 
shall  be.  In  this  the  action  of  living  things  appears 
to  contrast  with  that  of  inorganic  things."  * 

Now  this  "  final  result  of  its  action  "  really  exists 
from  the  beginning  in  the  form  of  mnemic  accumu- 
lations. For  that  environment  or  those  particular 
environmental  relations  towards  which  the  animal  is 
gravitating  now  operate  as  a  vis  a  fronte,  in  so  far  as 
they  were  formerly  vis  a  tergo,  and  in  so  far  as  the 
physiological  activities  then  determined  by  them  in  the 
organism  have  left  a  mnemic  accumulation  which  now 
in  its  turn  constitutes  the  real  and  true  vis  a  tergo,  which 
moves  the  living  being.3 

Thus  one  and  the  same  explanation  is  revealed  as 
valid  for  the  whole  of  the  "  finalism  "  of  life. 

For,  from  the  ontogenetic  development  which  shapes 
the  organs  which  can  fulfil  their  functions  only  in  the 
adult  state,  to  the  property  of  all  physiological  states, 
already  determined  by  certain  environmental  relations, 
of  becoming  active  on  the  first  appearance  of  phenomena 
which  usually  precede  but  which  do  not  yet  in  any 
wise  constitute  these  environmental  relations ;  from  the 
perfect  morphological  adaptation  of  the  organism  to 
its  environment  even  before  that  environment  can  exer- 
cise its  formative  influence,  to  all  the  marvellous  special 
conformations  and  structures  so  accurately  calculated 

1  Jennings,  op.  cit.  :  Behaviour  of  Lower  Organisms,  p.  338. 
-  *  Cf.  E.   Mach,  Die  Analyse  der  Empfindungen,  $th   edition,   Jena, 
Fischer,  1906,  pp.  70,  78. 


132        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

in  view  of  the  most  probable  conditions  to  which  this 
organism  may  later  be  exposed ;  from  the  simple 
mechanical  reflex  movements  so  perfectly  arranged  for 
the  preservation  and  welfare  of  the  individual,  to  the 
most  complex  instincts  by  means  of  which  animals 
prepare  in  advance  for  future  conditions  of  which  they 
themselves  know  nothing — all  these  "  finalistic  "  pheno- 
mena of  life,  identical  in  their  nature,  can  be  explained, 
as  I  have  already  pointed  out  in  the  volume  I  have 
referred  to,  as  so  many  manifestations  of  a  purely 
mnemic  nature. 

And  now  in  this  essay  we  see  that  it  is  the  affective 
tendencies  themselves,  manifestations  which  are,  if 
possible,  even  of  a  more  "  finalistic  "  aspect  than  all 
the  rest,  that  are  likewise  based  on  the  mnemic  property 
of  the  living  substance,  and  therefore,  in  the  last  analysis, 
on  the  property  of  "  specific  accumulation,"  a  property 
which  belongs  exclusively  to  the  nervous  energy  which 
is  the  basis  of  all  life. 

This  mnemic  property,  this  property  of  "  specific 
accumulation,"  which  by  its  absence  from  the  inorganic 
world  leaves  it  at  the  mercy  of  forces  a  tergo  and  deprives 
it  of  every  finalistic  aspect,  is,  on  the  contrary,  every- 
where present  in  organic  nature,  and  because  of  its 
presence  makes  the  world  of  life  a  world  apart,  of  which 
the  most  essential  characteristics  cannot  consequently 
be  explained  by  the  laws  of  physics  and  chemistry 
alone. 


WHAT   IS    CONSCIOUSNESS? 

PERHAPS  no  word  has  been  so  much  discussed,  and 
is  still  so  obscure  in  significance,  as  this  word  "  conscious- 
ness." We  are  all  of  us  ready,  without  the  slightest 
hesitation,  to  say  that  this  particular  action  or  that 
particular  psychic  state  is  "  conscious "  or  "  uncon- 
scious," but  when  we  come  to  inquire  in  what  consists 
this  character  of  "conscious"  which  we  give  to  one 
psychic  state  and  refuse  to  another,  in  most  cases  we 
are  quite  unable  to  give  a  satisfactory  answer.1 

Some  psychologists  go  so  far  as  to  consider  this 
problem  as  insoluble  :  "To  define  the  state  of  conscious- 
ness," writes  Ribot,  "  would  be  a  vain  and  idle  task  ; 
it  is  a  datum  of  observation,  an  ultimate  fact.  Physio- 
logy teaches  us  that  its  production  is  always  connected 
with  the  activity  of  the  nervous  system,  particularly 
with  the  brain.  But  the  reciprocal  is  not  true  ;  if  all 
psychic  activity  implies  nervous  activity,  all  nervous 
activity  does  not  imply  psychic  activity.  Nervous 

1  V.  Bain,  The  Emotions  and  the  Will,  4th  edition,  London,  Longmans, 
Green  &  Co.,  1899,  c.  xi  :  Consciousness,  pp.  539-46.  "  Whoever 
endeavours,  faithfully  and  firmly,  to  obtain  a  definite  idea  of  what  is 
meant  by  consciousness,  will  find  it  nowise  so  easy  a  matter  as  the 
frequent  and  ready  use  of  the  word  might  imply "  (Maudsley,  The 
Physiology  of  Mind,  London,  Macmillan,  1876,  p.  45). 

133 


134       ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

activity  is  much  more  extensive  than  psychic  activity ; 
consciousness  is  therefore  something  superadded.  In 
other  words,  every  state  of  consciousness  must  be 
considered  as  a  complex  event,  which  implies  a  nervous 
process ;  this  nervous  process  is  not  an  accessory, 
but  an  integral  part  of  the  event ;  and  further,  it 
is  the  basis,  the  fundamental  condition  of  the  event ;  as 
soon  as  this  nervous  process  is  produced,  the  event 
exists  in  itself  ;  and  as  soon  as  consciousness  is  added 
to  it,  the  event  exists  for  itself ;  consciousness  com- 
pletes it,  and  ends  it,  but  does  not  constitute  it."  T 

Others  use  a  term  that  is  very  fashionable  nowadays, 
and  call  the  consciousness  purely  and  simply  an  epi- 
phenomenon,  and  think  that  thereby  they  can  dispense 
with  the  necessity  of  a  closer  examination  of  the 
question,  as  if  the  giving  of  a  name  had  completely 
exhausted  it.3 

I  should  like  to  see  if  it  is  not  possible,  by  examining 
a  few  suitably  chosen  instances  of  "consciousness" 
and  "  unconsciousness,"  to  throw  some  light,  if  not 
upon  all,  at  least  upon  some  of  the  characteristics 
which  most  frequently  accompany  the  cases  we  call 
"conscious  "  and  which  are  not  met  with  in  the  cases 
called  "  unconscious."  Such  an  inquiry  may  thus  be 
a  first  step  towards  the  discovery  of  the  conditions  on 
which  consciousness  depends. 

It  will  be  well  to  begin  with  an  example  which  to 
some  may  appear  to  lie  outside  cases  of  consciousness 
properly  so  called,  but  which,  nevertheless,  is  closely 


1  Ribot,  Les  maladies  de  la  personnaliU,  Paris,  Alcan,  1906,  p.  6. 
3  Vtde,   for  instance,   Binet,   La  Psychologic  du   raisonnement,   Paris 
Alcan,  1902,  p.  165. 


WHAT  IS  CONSCIOUSNESS  ?  135 

connected  with  them.  I  look  at  the  portrait  of  some 
one  I  know  ;  I  recognize  that  it  represents  that  person, 
but  that  it  is  not  really  that  person.  The  complex 
sensation  aroused  by  the  portrait  awakens  simul- 
taneously, through  association  by  resemblance,  the  image 
of  the  real  person.  Thus  on  the  one  side  we  have,  for 
a  certain  time  at  least,  the  co-existence  of  the  present 
sensations  with  the  past  sensations  now  evoked  and  of 
less  intensity ;  on  the  other,  at  least  metaphorically, 
we  have  the  superposition  or  fusion,  for  the  sake  of 
their  identity,  of  a  limited  number  of  the  first  with  some 
of  the  second.  The  co-existence  for  a  certain  space  of 
time,  coupled  with  the  partial  superposition  or  fusion 
of  the  two  psychic  states  or  complex  systems  of  sensa- 
tions, seems  then,  at  first  sight,  to  be  just  what  enables 
me  to  recognize  that  the  portrait  represents  the  parti- 
cular person,  and  which  also  prevents  me  from  taking 
the  portrait  for  the  real  person  it  represents  ;  or,  in 
other  words,  what  makes  me  "  conscious  "  of  the  fact 
that  the  object  I  have  just  seen  is  merely  the  portrait 
of  a  person  I  know. 

It  may  be,  however,  asked  if,  in  addition  to  the  purely 
perceptive  sensations,  present  and  evoked,  there  come 
into  play  affective  elements  also,  as  the  determining 
conditions  of  the  state  of  mind  in  which  I  am  when  I 
recognize  that  the  object  is  the  portrait  of  a  person  I 
know  :  when  I  look  at  the  portrait  I  feel,  perhaps  with- 
out noting  it,  the  same  sentiments  of  tenderness  or 
dislike,  of  sympathy  or  antipathy,  and  so  on,  that  I  am 
accustomed  to  feel  at  the  sight  of  the  original ;  and 
perhaps  these  sentiments  would  also  contribute  to 
make  me  conscious  of  the  fact  that  this  is  the  portrait 


of  that  particular  individual.  We  shall  see  that  certain 
other  examples  lead  us  to  believe  that  the  superposi- 
tion and  fusion  of  a  part  of  the  perceptive  sensations 
alone,  unaccompanied  by  the  superposition  and  fusion 
of  the  affective  or  emotive  sensations,  are  not  sufficient 
to  give  us  the  consciousness  of  a  fact  as  it  is. 

Before  we  demonstrate  this — continuing  to  confine 
ourselves  for  the  moment  to  the  comparison  of  but  two 
psychical  states,  the  one  original  and  the  other  evoked — 
let  us  consider  two  typical  cases  in  which  the  evocation 
of  some  event  in  the  past  presents  itself  to  our  minds 
as  quite  isolated  and  separated  from  other  recollections 
of  preceding  or  subsequent  facts  : 

"  A  lady,  in  the  last  stage  of  a  chronic  disease,  was 
carried  from  London  to  a  lodging  in  the  country  ;  there 
her  infant  daughter  was  taken  to  visit  her,  and,  after  a 
short  interview,  carried  back  to  town.  The  lady  died 
a  few  days  after,  and  the  daughter  grew  up  without 
any  recollection  of  her  mother  until  she  was  of  mature 
age.  At  this  time  she  happened  to  be  taken  into  the 
room  in  which  her  mother  died,  without  knowing  it  to 
have  been  so ;  she  started  on  entering  it,  and  when 
a  friend  who  was  along  with  her  asked  the  cause  of  her 
agitation,  she  replied  :  '  I  have  a  distinct  impression 
of  having  been  in  this  room  before,  and  that  a  lady,  who 
lay  in  that  corner,  and  seemed  very  ill,  leaned  over 
me  and  wept.'  "  *• 

A  man  of  very  marked  artistic  temperament  became 
conscious,  as  he  approached  the  gateway  of  a  castle 

'  Ribot,  Les  maladies  de  la  memoirs,  Paris,  Alcan,  1901,  pp.  143-4. 
[English  edition,  Diseases  of  Memory,  London,  1885  (from  the  third 
French  edition),  p.  179.  The  story  itself  is  taken  from  Abercrombie, 
Essay  on  the  Intellectual  Powers,  p.  120.] 


WHAT  IS  CONSCIOUSNESS?  137 

in  Sussex,  of  a  very  vivid  impression  of  having  seen  it 
before,  and  he  seemed  to  himself  to  see,  not  only  the 
gateway,  but  donkeys  beneath  the  arch  and  people  on 
the  top  of  it.  He  learned  from  his  mother  that  when 
he  was  eighteen  months  old  he  had  been  taken  there 
on  an  excursion,  in  the  pannier  of  a  donkey,  and  that 
his  recollection  of  the  visitors  was  quite  correct.1 

The  coincidence  of  some  of  the  present  sensations 
with  some  of  the  past  sensations,  now  conjured 
up  by  the  association  of  ideas,  would  seem  to  be 
the  sole  cause  of  the  "  recollection,"  i.e.  of  the  "  con- 
sciousness "  of  having  been  present  in  person  at  the 
event  in  question.  But  that  is  far  from  being  cer- 
tain. Here  again  it  may  be  doubted  if  the  emotion 
the  lady  really  experienced  anew  at  the  moment  of 
entering  the  room,  and  which  the  artist  felt  when  he 
once  more  saw  the  castle — an  emotion  similar  to  that 
which  they  had  already  experienced  in  the  past  and 
of  which  they  had  not  lost  the  recollection — was  what 
gave  them  the  consciousness  of  having  lived  through 
the  circumstances  which  now  came  back  to  their  minds. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  difference  between  the  re- 
maining present  perceptions  and  the  others  evoked  is 
certainly,  even  in  these  cases  referred  to  by  Ribot,  what 
prevents  the  individual  from  believing  that  he  is  at 
the  present  moment  living  through  the  event  evoked. 
This  is  so  true  that  during  a  dream,  in  which  one  in  the 
same  way  lives  through  some  past  event,  but  in  which 
no  aggregate  of  different  present  sensations  accom- 
panies the  sensations  evoked,  there  is  no  "  conscious- 

1  Ribot,    ibid.,    p.    144.    [The    story  is    told    in    Carpenter's 
Physiology,  p.  431.] 


138        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

ness  "  at  all  that  we  are  dreaming  ;  and  the  individual, 
on  the  contrary,  takes  his  own  dream  for  a  real  event 
in  which  he  is  really  taking  part.  In  the  words  of  Maury, 
"  when  we  dream,  the  mind  is  completely  absorbed  by 
the  internal  perceptions  ;  an  absorption  which  prevents 
us  at  the  time  from  realizing  our  condition,  or  at  any 
rate  leaves  us  but  a  vague  and  fugitive  consciousness 
of  it."  ' 

I  have  now  twice  suggested  that  it  is  doubtful  if  the 
identity  of  certain  present  sensations  with  certain 
others  evoked  is  in  itself  sufficient,  when  it  is  a  question 
of  pure  perceptions,  to  evoke  the  past  event  and  to 
make  us  conscious  of  it.  A  typical  case  of  the  absence 
of  mind  of  which  I  am  often  the  victim  seems  to  me  to 
justify  that  doubt. 

When  I  leave  my  study  table,  I  usually  put  my  notes 
into  a  drawer  and  lock  them  up.  Sometimes  the  act  of 
locking  the  drawer  appears  to  me  afterwards  as  "  con- 
scious "  ;  at  other  times,  if  while  I  am  doing  it  my 
mind  is  full  of  my  thoughts,  this  act,  on  the  contrary, 
appears  to  me  afterwards  to  have  been  "  unconscious." 
In  the  second  case,  the  fear  lest  I  may  not  have  locked 
the  drawer  often  comes  upon  me  the  moment  I  have 
left  the  room,  and  as  it  is  impossible  for  me  to  remember 
if  I  have  locked  it  or  not,  I  feel  that  I  must  go  back  to 
the  room,  and  as  the  drawer  has  no  handle  I  must 
assure  myself  that  it  is  locked  by  opening  it  and 
shutting  it  again. 

The  desire  I  have  of  attaining  my  purpose,  to  lock 
the  drawer,  a  desire  which  is  manifested  by  my  care  to 
see  if  that  purpose  has  been  really  effected,  this  time 

1  Maury,  Lc  sommeil  et  les  reves,  Paris,  Didier,  1878,  p.  16. 


WHAT  IS  CONSCIOUSNESS?  139 

accompanies  my  act,  which  as  soon  as  I  have  left  the 
room  for  the  second  time  now  seems  to  me  to  be  a  "  con- 
scious "  act.  Note  that  at  the  moment  I  lock  the 
drawer  for  the  second  time  the  similar  preceding  act 
still  seems  to  me  to  be  unconscious  ;  and  yet  it  is 
certain  that  the  same  aggregate  of  visual,  auditive, 
tactile,  and  muscular  sensations  is  being  reproduced 
which  must  have  accompanied  the  similar  act  of  a  few 
moments  before.  However  great  may  be  in  this  case 
the  common  part  of  the  purely  perceptive  sensations, 
it  is  not  therefore  sufficient  as  yet  to  evoke  and  make 
conscious  an  act  which  has  taken  place  so  short  a  time 
before. 

And  how  does  it  come  about,  on  the  contrary,  that 
if  the  desire  of  attaining  my  purpose  of  locking  the 
drawer  has  accompanied  for  the  second  time  the  corre- 
sponding act,  then  when  I  have  again  left  my  study  the 
act  now  appears  to  me  to  be  a  conscious  act  ?  There 
is  no  longer  any  common  part  of  the  perceptive  sensa- 
tions which  can  connect  my  psychic  state  of  the  moment 
I  am  leaving  the  study  with  that  of  the  moment  at 
which  I  was  locking  the  drawer.  And  yet,  if  I  now 
ask  myself  once  more  if  I  have  locked  the  drawer,  my 
act  comes  back  immediately  to  my  mind,  and  I  am 
completely  conscious  of  it. 

It  would  therefore  seem  that  it  is  this  aggregate  of 
affective  sensations  relative  to  the  end  desired — or  an 
equivalent  aggregate  of  emotive  sensations  in  general — 
which  really  constitutes  that  particular  kind  of  sensa- 
tions, common  to  the  present  and  to  the  past  state, 
which  are  necessary  and  sufficient  to  evoke  that  past 
state  and  to  make  it  conscious. 


140        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

I  say  "  necessary  and  sufficient  to  evoke  that  pasf 
state  and  to  make  it  conscious,"  because  there  are  certain 
examples  which  would  seem  to  prove,  and  to  place 
beyond  a  doubt,  that  we  may  very  well  have  the 
recollection  of  a  past  event,  and  that  the  event  may 
nevertheless  continue  to  remain  unconscious  to  us. 

Thus  Maury,  in  the  classic  work  on  dreams  already 
referred  to,  tells  us  that  one  night  he  dreamed  of  an 
individual  whom  he  did  not  know  even  by  sight.  In 
the  morning  when  he  awoke,  the  face  of  the  unknown 
who  had  appeared  to  him  in  his  sleep  still  remained 
very  clearly  in  his  memory.  What  was  his  astonish- 
ment to  meet  in  the  street  a  few  days  after,  in  flesh  and 
blood,  the  unknown  of  whom  he  had  dreamed.  After 
long  reflection,  and  only  after  some  days  had  passed, 
he  happened  on  the  explanation  of  this  strange  coinci- 
dence. Several  times,  some  months  before,  he  had 
passed  through  the  street  in  which  he  met  the  individual, 
and  then  he  had  no  occasion  to  pass  that  way  for  more 
than  a  year,  until  the  day  before  he  had  the  dream. 
As  for  professional  reasons  he  had  taken  to  passing 
through  this  street  rather  frequently,  he  noticed  that 
it  often  happened  that  he  met  this  individual,  who, 
no  doubt,  must  have  lived  in  it.  So  Maury  thinks  it 
extremely  probable  that  the  year  before,  when  he  passed 
through  the  street  so  often,  he  must  have  frequently 
met  the  man  without  taking  any  particular  notice  of 
him,  and  as  the  day  before  the  dream  he  had  been 
through  the  street,  even  if  on  that  occasion  he  had  not 
met  the  man,  the  fact  was  sufficient  to  evoke  by  associa- 
tion of  ideas  during  the  dream  the  recollection  of  the 
same  individual. 


WHAT  IS  CONSCIOUSNESS?  141 

Hence,  when  Maury  was  awake  and  the  image  of 
his  dream  came  back  to  his  mind,  that  image  consti- 
tuted a  real  and  characteristic  mnemic  evocation  of 
an  event  which  so  far  had  been  unconscious  to  him, 
and  which,  in  spite  of  this  evocation,  still  remained 
unconscious  to  him.  The  evoked  image  now  succeeded 
in  fixing  his  attention  and  interest,  awakening  in  him 
sentiments  of  pleasure  or  dislike,  sj^mpathy  or  antipathy, 
or  other  analogous  sentiments,  but  not  one  of  these 
sentiments  could  now  act  as  tinder  to  the  spark  to  make 
"conscious"  to  him  the  moment  at  which  he  had 
really  seen  the  individual. 

If,  on  the  contrary,  preoccupations  in  other  direc- 
tions had  not  at  that  moment  prevented  him  from  feeling 
towards  the  man  he  passed  the  same  sentiment  which 
he  now  felt  towards  the  image,  this  tinder,  this  common 
portion  of  affective  sensations,  would  not  have  failed 
him  then,  and  the  event  would  in  a  flash  have  become 
"conscious"  for  him. 

To  sum  up  all  I  have  so  far  said,  it  would  seem  that 
we  cannot  speak  of  the  "  consciousness  "  of  a  psychic 
state  in  itself,  but  only  of  the  "  consciousness  "  that  a 
present  psychic  state  has  of  a  past  psychic  state  ;  and 
that  this  "  conscious  "  character  of  a  past  psychic  state, 
now  evoked,  with  reference  to  another  present  state,  is 
met  with  whenever  there  is  co-existence,  for  a  certain 
time  at  least,  of  the  first  with  the  second,  and  partial 
superposition  or  fusion  of  one  with  the  other.  It  is, 
however,  necessary  that  this  partial  superposition  or 
fusion  should  be  principally  produced  in  the  affective 
part  of  the  two  psychic  states. 

We  may  now  roughly  picture  to  ourselves  this  partial 


142        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

superposition  or  fusion  of  the  two  psychic  states  by 
imagining  that  the  cerebral  zones,  to  the  activity  of 
which  are  due  these  two  psychic  states,  the  one 
present  and  the  other  evoked,  coincide  partially  one 
with  the  other — that  is  to  say,  have  a  certain  portion  in 
common.  It  must  here  be  remarked  that  the  cerebral 
zone,  to  the  activity  of  which  the  psychic  state  evoked 
is  due,  will  be  the  same  zone  which  was  active  in  the 
past  when  the  psychic  state  was  produced  for  the 
first  time. 

Sometimes,  particularly  in  the  phenomena  of  intro- 
spection, if  the  past  psychic  state,  conscious  with  respect 
to  a  new  psychic  state,  lasts  or  continues  to  exist  during 
the  formation  of  the  latter,  only  long  enough  to  give  the 
illusion  that  the  two  psychic  states  are  contemporary 
and  are  blended  into  one  psychic  state,  it  is  more  diffi- 
cult for  us  to  see  that  in  this  case  also  it  is  a  question  of 
the  consciousness  of  one  state  with  respect  to  another ; 
we  then  speak,  although  erroneously  here  also,  of  a 
psychic  state  "  conscious  in  itself." 

From  the  conscious  character  of  one  psychic  state 
with  respect  to  another  we  readily  pass  to  the  conscious 
character  that  the  whole  of  a  series  of  acts  or  successive 
psychic  states  have  the  one  with  respect  to  the  other. 
Such  a  series  we  have  when,  with  respect  to  the  present 
psychic  state,  it  is  a  just  evoked  antecedent  state  which 
appears  as  conscious,  and  when,  with  reference  to  the 
last  evoked,  another  psychic  state  antecedent  or  subse- 
quent, and  also  evoked,  appears  in  its  turn  as  conscious, 
and  so  on. 

If  we  reflect  on  what  we  have  done  since  the  morn- 
ing, it  should  convince  us  that  parallel  to  the  series  of 


WHAT  IS  CONSCIOUSNESS?  143 

our  conscious  acts  there  are  always  succeeding  corre- 
sponding complex  affectivities,  such  that  each,  beginning 
to  be  activated  before  the  cessation  of  the  preceding 
act,  continues  afterwards  during  the  first  phases  or  the 
complete  development  of  the  following  act,  and  some- 
times even  during  a  whole  series  of  successive  acts. 
Thus  the  sense  of  pleasure  that  I  feel  in  approaching 
the  end  of  a  difficult  piece  of  work,  because  I  am  tasting 
in  advance  the  leisure  that  will  follow,  serves  to  link 
the  two  states,  my  present  state  to  the  following  one 
in  which  I  am  really  at  rest.  The  desire  not  to  fail  at 
a  rendezvous  continues  during  the  whole  series  of  acts 
which  have  as  their  object  the  making  haste  and  the 
not  losing  time.  The  complex  sentiment  of  pleasure 
and  fear  which  the  child  experiences  while  he  is  greedily 
munching  the  stolen  cake  is  common  both  to  the  moment 
at  which  he  is  eating  the  cake  and  to  the  following 
moment  when  he  is  taking  pains  to  remove  all  traces 
of  his  little  theft,  and  constitutes  the  affective  bridge 
which  connects  the  two  lived  episodes. 

Let  the  axis  of  abscissae  represent  the  time.  To  fix 
the  ideas,  suppose  that  points  and  segments  on  the  axis 
of  ordinates  represent  by  their  position  and  magnitude 
the  different  portions  of  the  total  cerebral  surface  to 
the  activity  of  which  are  due  the  different  complex 
psychic  states  :  as  if  the  different  sensitive  and  affective 
centres  could  be  arranged  along  that  axis  without 
altering  their  respective  contiguity  or  proximity.  Then 
for  our  schematic  figure  representing  a  series  of  original 
psychic  states,  a,  b,  c,  .  .  .  capable,  as  long  as  time  has 
not  effaced  the  mnemic  impression  left,  of  ultimately 
appearing  as  conscious  one  to  another,  we  shall  have  a 


144        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

series  of  rectangles  of  different  sizes  and  shapes,  over- 
lapping one  another  so  that  each,  especially  with  respect 
to  their  affective  portions,  is  partly  superposed  on  its 
immediate  predecessor. 

If  above  and  below  this  connected  series  of  rectangles 
others  are  drawn  connected  in  the  same  manner,  none 
of  which  having  any  portion,  especially  an  affective 
portion,  common  to  any  of  those  of  the  first  series,  the 
second  would  represent  a  series  of  psychic  states  x,  y, 
z,  .  .  .,  also  conscious  one  with  respect  to  another, 
but  unconscious  with  respect  to  the  principal  series  a, 
b,  ct  .  .  .  constituting  the  "  consciousness,"  properly  so 
called,  of  the  individual ;  they  would  thus  represent  with 
respect  to  that  individual  a  short  series  of  unconscious 
states,  giving  rise  to  the  beginning  of  a  doubling  of  his 
personality.  On  the  contrary,  two  series  of  rectangles, 
the  one  produced  in  a  certain  period  and  the  other 
in  another  period,  even  distinct  and  remote  from  the 
first,  may  by  their  simultaneous  evocation  be  considered 
as  one  single  series,  provided  that  some  rectangle  of  the 
first  series  has  an  affective  portion  in  common  with 
another  rectangle  of  the  other  series. 

These  short  series  of  unconscious  states  constituting 
the  beginning  of  a  doubling  of  the  personality,  are, 
as  is  well  known,  common  enough  even  in  normal 
individuals. 

During  a  summer  holiday  at  Riva  Valdobbia,  at  the 
foot  of  Monte  Rosa,  I  used  to  walk  every  day  along  the 
mule-path  of  Ca'  di  Janzo.  The  descent,  especially 
at  that  time,  was  rough  and  broken.  One  had  to  jump 
from  one  stone  to  another,  and  as  some  of  the  stones 
were  in  unstable  equilibrium,  one  had  to  watch  where  the 


WHAT  IS  CONSCIOUSNESS?  145 

feet  were  placed.  The  first  few  times  I  made  the  descent 
the  little  difficulties  amused  me,  and  kept  the  interest 
alive  in  surmounting  them  one  by  one.  I  remembered 
the  principal  stones  that  I  had  come  across  on  other 
mornings,  and  if  I  remembered  that  the  day  before 
certain  of  these  stones  had  given  way  under  my  feet 
and  threatened  to  roll  down  the  slope,  I  took  my  pre- 
cautions accordingly.  At  the  end  of  my  walk,  all  the 
little  events  of  the  descent,  all  my  most  difficult  steps 
and  jumps,  came  back  to  my  mind  and  appeared  to  me 
as  "  conscious." 

At  first  for  a  few  days  this  walk  served  as  an  excellent 
diversion  from  my  usual  meditations,  because  it  awakened 
all  my  interest.  Little  by  little,  however,  this  interest, 
and  the  preoccupation  with  the  little  difficulties  that 
had  to  be  surmounted,  diminished  to  such  an  extent 
that  ultimately  I  made  the  descent  quite  mechanically, 
thinking  of  something  else,  just  as  if  I  were  walking 
on  the  high  road.  All  my  steps,  however  difficult, 
the  leaps  from  one  stone  to  another — even  those  I  had 
to  take  so  as  not  to  move  the  stones,  and  although 
some  of  the  stones  had  certainly  been  moved  from  their 
places  since  I  went  by  last — had  become  to  me  so  many 
unconscious  acts.  In  fact,  I  found  myself  returning 
to  my  hotel  without  the  slightest  recollection  of  any  of 
the  surmounted  difficulties  which  would  have  made  me 
conscious  of  the  descent. 

And  yet,  even  during  this  unconscious  descent,  I 
must  certainly  have  paid  considerable  attention  to  the 
stones,  judging  from  the  manner  in  which  I  carefully 
placed  my  feet  on  them  so  that  they  should  not  roll 
down  ;  moreover,  a  large  number  of  them  had  changed 

10 


146        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

position  day  by  day  from  the  incessant  traffic  up  and 
down  the  path,  so  that  my  steps  cannot  have  been  simple 
reflex  actions,  but  must  certainly  have  been  guided  by 
connected  acts  of  reflection. 

In  this  example,  what  appeared  to  me  as  conscious 
at  the  end  of  my  walk  was  the  series  of  my  meditations, 
and  what  appeared  to  me  as  unconscious  was  the  series 
of  sensations  and  reactions  provoked  in  me  by  the 
external  world.  Sometimes,  however,  the  exact  oppo- 
site happens  :  the  series  of  external  sensations  remains 
conscious  to  us,  and  the  internal  meditation  remains 
unconscious,  for  all  depends  on  the  fortuitous  circum- 
stances which  decide  one  of  the  two  series  to  link  up 
with  the  one  which  will  then  be  the  principal  series,  the 
consciousness,  properly  so  called,  of  the  individual. 

Thus,  when  one  is  exhausted  after  a  fruitless  attempt 
to  solve  a  problem,  and  goes  out  for  a  rest  and  change, 
all  the  agreeable  sensations  aroused  by  the  walk,  and 
they  alone,  appear  to  him  on  his  return  as  conscious  ; 
but  suddenly,  like  a  flash,  the  solution  of  the  problem 
he  had  attacked  in  vain  comes  into  his  mind  :  the 
internal  meditation,  without  which  it  would  have  been 
impossible  to  have  reached  the  sought-for  solution, 
has  therefore,  no  doubt,  taken  place,  but  it  has  all  the 
while  been  unconscious  to  him.  Cases  of  the  solution 
of  celebrated  scientific  problems  reached  in  this  uncon- 
scious way  are  too  well  known  for  it  to  be  necessary  to 
give  instances  of  them  here. 

Sometimes  the  series  of  internal  meditations  remains 
unconscious  to  us  as  well  as  the  series  of  sensations  of 
the  external  world.  Maury  tells  us  that  one  day 
"  finding  myself  near  M.  F.,  a  man  of  very  absent- 


WHAT  IS  CONSCIOUSNESS?  147 

minded  habits,  and  much  given  to  meditation,  I  noticed 
that  he  was  not  taking  the  slightest  notice  of  what  I 
was  saying,  and  ceased  to  answer  me.  He  seemed  in 
a  state  of  deep  reflection.  He  was  so  motionless  that 
I  thought  he  had  fainted.  I  shook  him  violently  by 
the  arm.  '  What  do  you  want  ?  '  said  he.  '  Are  you 
ill  ?  '  I  replied.  '  No  !  '  '  What  is  the  matter  with 
you,  then  ?  '  'I  was  thinking.'  '  What  about  ?  ' 
'  Well,  that  is  very  odd.  I  have  not  the  slightest  idea, 
and  yet  I  feel  as  if  I  was  tired  out  with  thinking.'  "  * 

In  this  case,  the  series  of  sensations  provoked  by  the 
questions  which  Maury  had  continued  to  put  to  him 
for  a  certain  time,  as  the  series  of  his  own  thoughts, 
had  remained  unconscious  to  him. 

From  these  normal  cases  of  transient  doubling  of  the 
personality,  which  embrace  all  cases  of  so-called  absent- 
mindedness,  we  pass  by  degrees  to  pathological  cases 
of  genuine  and  characteristic  doubling  of  personality. 
Very  characteristic  in  this  respect  is  the  case  reported 
by  Taine :  "I  have  seen  a  woman  who,  while  she  was 
talking  or  singing,  wrote,  without  a  glance  at  the  paper, 
consecutive  phrases,  and  even  whole  pages,  without  the 
slightest  idea  of  what  she  had  written.  I  believe  her 
to  have  been  perfectly  sincere  :  now  she  declared  that 
when  she  had  reached  the  foot  of  the  page  she  had  no 
idea  of  what  she  had  written  ;  when  she  read  what  she 
had  written  she  was  astonished,  and  sometimes  alarmed. 
Even  the  writing  was  unlike  her  usual  script.  The 
movement  of  the  fingers  and  of  the  pencil  was  stiff,  and 
seemed  automatic.  Her  writing  always  ended  with  a 
signature,  that  of  a  dead  person,  and  bore  the  mark  of 

1  Maury,  op.  cit,  p.  228. 


intimate  thoughts,  of  a  mental  background  that  the 
writer  would  not  like  to  reveal  to  others."  1 

Quite  analogous  is  the  case  related  by  Janet :  he 
suggested  to  an  hysterical  subject  named  Lucie,  then 
in  the  state  of  somnambulism,  that  when  she  was 
awakened  she  would  write  a  letter  at  a  given  signal. 
When  awakened  she  wrote  as  follows  :  "  Madame,  I 
cannot  come  on  Sunday  as  arranged.  Pray  accept  my 
excuses.  It  will  give  me  great  pleasure  to  come  with 
you,  but  I  cannot  accept  for  that  day.  Your  friend, 
LUCIE. — P.S.  Please  give  the  children  all  sorts  of 
messages."  "  This  automatic  letter,"  says  Janet,  "  is 
correct,  and  shows  reflection.  While  she  was  writing, 
she  was  talking,  and  answering  several  people  on  all 
sorts  of  subjects.  Besides,  she  knew  nothing  about  the 
letter  when  I  showed  it  to  her,  and  stoutly  maintained 
that  I  had  copied  her  signature."  * 

In  another  experiment  Janet  suggested  to  the  same 
subject  during  the  hypnotic  sleep  :  "  '  You  will  multiply 
739  by  42.'  When  she  awoke,  at  the  given  signal  her 
right  hand  began  to  write  down  the  figures  in  order,  and 
went  through  the  whole  operation  and  without  a  stop 
until  the  work  was  finished.  The  whole  time  she  was 
broad  awake,  and  was  telling  me  how  she  had  spent  the 
day,  and  she  continued  to  talk  the  whole  time  her  right 
hand  was  correctly  working  out  the  sum."  3 

Other  genuine  and  characteristic  doublings  of  the 
personality,  substantially  similar  to  these  now  men- 
tioned, prove  most  clearly  what  I  have  above  remarked  : 


1  Taine,  De  I' intelligence,  8th  edition,  Paris,  Hachette,  1897,  i,  pp.  16-17- 

2  Janet,  L'automatisme  psychologique,  Paris,  Alcan,  1907,  pp.  263-4. 

3  Ibid.,  p.  263. 


WHAT  IS  CONSCIOUSNESS?  149 

the  psychic  states  x,y,z,  .  .  .,  unconscious  with  respect 
to  the  principal  series  a,b,c,  .  .  .,  may,  on  the  contrary, 
be  conscious  to  one  another,  if  the  conditions  I  have 
laid  down  are  also  satisfied.  In  fact,  double  per- 
sonality consists  in  just  this  :  a  long  series  of  states, 
unconscious  for  one  of  the  personalities,  constitute,  on 
the  contrary,  for  the  other  a  series  of  conscious 
states. 

Thus,  for  instance,  in  the  case  of  the  somnambulist, 
what  he  does  during  the  attack  appears  to  him  uncon- 
scious as  soon  as  he  "  comes  to,"  but  becomes  in  many 
cases  conscious  to  him  in  the  next  attack.  Dr.  Mesnel's 
patient  continued  during  an  attack  the  preparations 
for  suicide  she  had  planned  and  commenced  during  the 
previous  attack,  of  which  she  had  no  recollection  at  all 
during  the  lucid  interval.  She  then  remembered  the 
whole  of  the  circumstances  of  the  other  attack.  Macario 
quotes  the  case  of  a  young  somnambulist  who  was 
violated  during  an  attack,  and  in  the  waking  state  had 
no  recollection  of  what  had  happened.  It  was  only 
in  the  next  attack  that  she  told  her  mother  of  the 
outrage.1 

Sometimes  one  state  is  conscious  of  another,  while 
the  latter  is  not  conscious  of  the  former.  Thus,  for 
instance,  Dr.  Azam's  case  of  a  young  woman  with  double 
personality,  "  who  had  a  normal  state — though  itself 
pathological,  for  she  was  an  hysterical  subject — and 
another  state  in  which  her  character  and  ideas  were 
quite  different  from  those  in  the  first  state.  In  the 
latter  state  she  remembered  what  she  had  done  in  the 
former,  but  in  the  former  state  she  completely  forgot 

1  Maory,  op.  cit.,  p   234. 


150        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

what  she  had  said  and  done  in  the  latter.  So  she 
seemed  to  be  two  distinct  persons,  and  his  alterna- 
tion of  personality  presented  a  significant  analogy  to 
natural  somnambulism,  without  the  young  woman 
being,  properly  speaking,  a  somnambulist."  J 

These  examples,  which  could  be  multiplied  to  any 
extent,  are  peculiarly  appropriate  to  show  that  each 
psychic  state  is  not  in  itself  either  conscious  or  uncon- 
scious, but  becomes  one  or  the  other  only  in  relation 
to  some  other  psychic  state.  In  other  words,  conscious- 
ness is  not  in  itself  a  character  which  belongs,  as  its 
very  own,  to  a  psychic  state  :  it  characterizes  a  relation 
between  two  or  more  psychic  states. 

A  psychic  state,  even  when  considered  in  isolation, 
may  always  be  recognized  as  having,  for  instance,  one 
emotive  character  rather  than  another,  as  imaginative 
rather  than  volitive,  and  so  on,  while,  as  long  as  it  is 
isolated,  we  can  never  say  that  it  is  conscious  or  uncon- 
scious. So  that  only  when  it  is  referred  to  another 
psychic  state  can  we  say,  with  respect  to  the  latter, 
it  is  conscious  or  unconscious.  And  if  it  is  conscious 
with  respect  to  a  psychic  state  A,  it  may  be  unconscious 
with  respect  to  another  psychic  state  B. 

Consciousness  is  thus  not  an  intrinsic  or  absolute 
property  of  psychic  states,  but  a  property  extrinsic 
and  relative,  which  accompanies  certain  modalities  of 
reference  existing  between  those  states. 

1  Maury,  ibid.,  pp.  237-*. 


VI 

THE    RELIGIOUS    PHENOMENON 

THE  religious  phenomenon  presents  itself  at  first  sight 
as  a  double  paradox — psychological  and  sociological. 
We  see,  formed  and  fixed  in  the  human  mind,  beliefs 
which  are  the  very  antithesis  of  what  is  suggested  to  us 
by  the  experience  of  our  daily  lives.  We  see  the  rise 
and  development  in  the  social  organism  of  a  well- 
specialized  organ,  the  principal  function  of  which  from 
the  very  outset  seems  to  be  nothing  but  the  useless 
squandering  of  valuable  collective  energies.  We  see, 
for  instance,  individuals  offering  food  to  inanimate 
objects,  and  repeating  the  same  act  day  after  day, 
although  the  food  thus  offered  is  never  touched ;  or 
we  see  them  offering  up  daily  prayers  to  motionless 
images,  although  their  prayers  have  never  the  slightest 
effect ;  and  we  see  societies,  whose  economic  situation 
is  still  precarious,  consecrating  to  the  construction  of 
noble  temples  efforts  and  wealth  far  greater  than  they 
spend  on  their  own  dwellings,  consuming  in  sacrifices 
or  votive  offerings  whole  herds  of  cattle  and  other 
capital  of  enormous  social  value,  and  maintaining  at 
great  expense  a  numerous  priestly  caste,  apparently 
unproductive  and  parasitic. 
Thus  two  fundamental  problems  present  themselves, 


152        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

quite  distinct  although  connected,  the  one  psychological 
and  the  other  sociological ;  and  it  may  be  added  that 
because  of  the  vital  questions  connected  with  them 
their  solution  has  been  the  preoccupation  of  every 
philosophical  mind. 

As  far  as  the  psychological  problem  is  concerned, 
and  here  I  will  touch  on  it  but  briefly,  it  is  now  generally 
admitted,  with  Hume,  that  at  the  base  of  all  religious 
conceptions  is  found  the  preconceived  opinion  that 
primitive  man  makes  for  himself,  by  an  irresistible 
association  of  ideas  and  the  hasty  generalization  result- 
ing from  it,  at  every  unexpected  happening  in  the 
physical  world  in  which  he  lives — the  opinion  that  events 
are  caused  by  one  or  more  wills  similar  to  that  of  man. 
As  soon  as  his  mental  attitude  is  thus  turned  to 
"  animism,"  the  different  religious  beliefs  may  have 
respectively  different  origins — of  euemeristic,  zoolatrous, 
fetishistic  nature,  and  so  on — these  multiple  origins 
being  then  quite  compatible  one  with  another. 

The  fact  that  very  often,  even  in  real  life,  if  the  effects 
of  hostile  acts  emanating  from  the  will  of  an  enemy  are 
tangible,  the  latter  remains  unknown  to  the  victim, 
explains  the  persistence  of  the  bias  to  animism,  although 
experience  has  never  furnished  a  direct  proof  of  it ; 
moreover,  the  notion  of  the  double,  which  in  Spencer's 
opinion  is  spontaneously  formed  by  the  intermediary 
of  dreams,  of  our  own  reflected  image  and  of  our  shadow, 
gives  the  opportunity  of  substituting  for  the  proven 
and  undeniable  inertia  of  a  sensible  object  the  action 
of  its  invisible  double.1 

1  V.  G.  Foucart,  La  method*  comparative  dans  I'histoire  des  religions 
Paris,  Picard,  1909,  p.  108. 


THE  RELIGIOUS  PHENOMENON  153 

But  that  is  not  enough,  for  then  we  must  attribute 
a  religious  character  also  to  the  similar  beliefs  of  the 
higher  animals  which,  as  their  behaviour  shows,  also 
attribute  to  hostile  beings  the  unexpected  cosmic  events 
which  particularly  strike  their  attention.  It  is  here 
that  we  find  coming  into  play  and  affirming  itself  one 
of  the  most  remarkable  intellectual  and  affective  differ- 
ences between  man  and  animals,  on  which  in  general 
sufficient  stress  is  not  laid.  I  allude  to  the  mental 
and  emotive  form  of  the  propitiatory  act. 

The  attitude  of  animals  in  the  universal  struggle 
for  existence  is  that  of  either  flight  or  attack  ;  they 
ignore  the  propitiatory  act.  The  new  intermediary 
attitude  appears  only  in  the  struggle  between  man 
and  man.  It  required  a  notable  development  of  the 
highest  intellectual  faculties  of  observation,  inhibition, 
and  reasoning,  so  that  experience  could  teach  the  con- 
queror the  advantage  of  sparing  the  conquered  when  he 
surrendered,  and  at  the  same  time  could  teach  the 
conquered  the  advantage  he  could  secure  to  his  safety 
by  the  very  act  of  propitiation.  .It  is  therefore  only  in 
these  ancestors  of  man  who  were  the  first  to  practise 
the  propitiatory  act  with  respect  to  their  fellows  that 
this  habit  could  be  extended  to  other  beings,  whose 
conduct  they  supposed  to  be  inspired  by  motives 
analogous  to  their  own.  The  first  man  who  threw 
himself  prostrate,  but  no  longer  before  another  man, 
was  the  first  believer  and  the  first  founder  of  all 
religions. 

Experience,  moreover,  teaches  us  that  among  the 
propitiatory  acts  addressed  to  our  fellows,  some  succeed 
and  others  fail ;  but  the  latter  cannot  invalidate  the 


154        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

utility  of  the  former.  There  will  rather  be  a  tendency 
to  attribute  the  failure,  as  is  most  frequently  the  case, 
to  some  mistake  or  flaw  in  the  propitiatory  act  itself. 
Thus  in  the  case  of  acts  of  religious  propitiation,  failure 
after  failure  cannot  shake  the  general  belief  in  their 
utility,  a  belief  which  is  strengthened  by  the  rare 
successes  due  to  chance,  and  which  then  in  return 
strengthens  the  animist  bias  in  which  it  found  its  source. 
It  is  thus  that  a  large  number  of  complicated  religious 
•rites,  the  rigorous  and  minute  observances  demanded 
by  prayer  and  sacrifice,  spring  precisely  from  this  desire 
to  perfect  and  complete  the  propitiatory  act  itself,  to 
whose  supposed  imperfection  and  insufficiency  is  attri- 
buted the  precedent  failures.1 

The  mental  form  of  propitiation  is  thus  added  to  the 
original  animistic  bias  to  awaken,  develop,  and  strengthen 
religious  faith  in  primitive  minds.  But  this  is  not  yet 
sufficient  to  explain  how  this  tenacious  faith  persists 
in  minds  infinitely  superior  to  those  of  the  first  men, 
in  spite  of  a  wider  experience,  which  far  from  providing 
positive  support  is  ever  undermining  it  by  fresh  denials 
that  the  progress  of  the  reasoning  faculties  should  cause 
to  be  appreciated  at  their  full  value,  and  in  spite  of 
the  contradiction  which  gradually  appears,  and  daily 
becomes  more  marked,  between"  the  '  mental  form 
which  connects  cosmic  phenomena  with  the  free  play 
of  one  or  more  quite  arbitrary  wills,  and  the  scien- 
tific concept^  which  makes  slow  but  continuous 
headway  and  recognizes  in  nature  the  existence  of 
invariable  laws. 

We  find  invoked  as  an  explanation  the  inhibitive 

*  G,  Foucart,  op.  cit.,  p.  155. 


THE  RELIGIOUS  PHENOMENON          155 

and  deformative  action  exercised  upon  the  faculties 
of  observation  and  reasoning  by  the  intense  affective 
states.  In  fact,  a  strong,  keen  affection  or  emotion, 
which  prevails  in  an  exclusive  and  durable  manner  over 
all  others,  quickens  our  sensitiveness  to  certain  sensa- 
tions and  dulls  them  to  others  ;  it  provokes  or  reinforces 
the  evocation  of  certain  recollections,  while  it  checks 
or  weakens  that  of  certain  others  ;  it  impresses  a  given 
direction  upon  the  imaginative  process  and  assigns  a 
well-determined  end  to  that  of  reasoning  ;  and  in  this 
way  it  produces  and  maintains  only  such  mental  states 
as  directly  or  indirectly  support,  strengthen,  or  satisfy 
it,  while  it  succeeds  in  eliminating  all  that  remain 
incompatible  with  it.  This  affective  selection  of  mental 
states  operated  by  the  religious  sentiment  of  fear,  may 
thus  serve  to  explain  the  duration  of  beliefs  conforming 
to  it,  although  reality  is  continually  giving  them 
the  lie. 

But  if  every  individual  were  left  free  to  observe  and 
to  form  his  own  opinion,  apart  from  outside  suggestion, 
of  all  that  is  going  on  in  the  world  around  him,  we 
cannot  understand — given  that  at  any  time  his  natural 
conditions  of  existence  ought  not  to  have  been  such  as 
to  keep  him  in  a  state  of  perpetual  terror — how  there 
could  have  sprung  up  in  him  and  have  been  maintained 
a  religious  emotivity  so  intense  and  so  capable  of  oppos- 
ing with  so  much  success  the  most  obvious  experiences 
of  daily  life. 

Here,  then,  we  must  appeal  to  the  incessant  operation 
of  an  external  suggestion  exercised  by  the  community, 
so  as  to  maintain  and  renew  artificially  in  each  individual 
and  at  every  moment  of  his  life,  the  state  of  religious 


156        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

dread  that  natural  circumstances  would  produce  only 
in  some  individuals  and  by  accident. 

Thus  before  the  psychological  problem  can  be  com- 
pletely solved,  we  must  first  solve  the  sociological 
problem  relative  to  the  existence  of  this  social  organ 
of  religious  suggestion. 

Following  the  principle  of  Lamarck,  which  holds  good 
for  the  organism  of  animals  as  well  as  for  society,  the 
mere  fact  of  the  existence  of  an  organ  implies  the  utility 
to  the  organism  of  the  function  exercised  by  that 
organ.  It  is,  in  fact,  to  the  exercise  of  such  a  function, 
demanded  and  supported  by  the  vital  needs  or  necessities 
of  the  aggregate  of  the  organism,  that  are  to  be  attri- 
buted the  formation  and  development  of  the  organ  in 
question.  Thus  there  can  be  no  doubt  whatever  as  to 
the  utility  of  the  social  function  of  the  religious  organ, 
and  the  less  or  greater  development  of  the  latter  must 
take  place  in  direct  ratio  to  the  need  of  society  for  its 
functional  activity. 

The  very  fact  alluded  to  above  of  the  act  of  submission 
and  propitiation,  which  makes  its  appearance  and  is 
developed  as  a  substitute  for  flight,  tends  to  show  that 
man  was  at  grips  with  man  since  the  stage  of  pre-social 
development  and  that,  as  soon  as  that  state  of  isolation 
was  succeeded  by  even  a  semblance  of  collective  life, 
it  must  have  been  characterized  by  a  certain  para- 
sitism or  exploitation  of  some  to  the  advantage  of 
others,  and  therefore  by  a  kind  of  differentiation  or 
rudimentary  division  of  labour.  Otherwise,  had  there 
been  no  struggle  of  man  with  man,  we  could  not  under- 
stand how  pacific  relations  could  ever  have  given  rise 
to  a  propitiatory  act  imploring  pity ;  and  inversely, 


THE  RELIGIOUS  PHENOMENON  157 

without  parasitism  or  any  other  analogous  form  of  the 
exploitation  of  man  by  man,  we  could  not  explain  how 
any  interest  could  urge  the  conqueror  to  spare  the 
vanquished,  which  was  the  very  object  of  the  act  of 
submission  and  propitiation. 

In  animal  species  in  which  the  individuals  live  in 
pacific  relations,  e.g.  among  the  herbivorous  mammals, 
the  propitiatory  act  neither  exists  nor  can  exist,  and 
collective  life  is  formed  without  parasitism  or  differen- 
tiation of  activity,  solely  for  the  advantage  it  affords 
against  the  attacks  of  the  carnivorous  species  ;  in  such 
societies  of  animals  the  mere  spirit  of  gregariousness, 
so  admirably  analysed  by  Galton,  then  constitutes  the 
necessary  and  sufficient  psychic  link.  On  the  other 
hand,  in  the  other  type  of  animal  societies,  with  more  or 
less  partial  or  total  parasitism  and  social  division  of 
labour,  such  as  we  see  in  polymorphous  social  insects, 
it  is  the  very  diversity  of  structure  and  the  correspond- 
ing variety  in  the  instinct  which  assigns  to  each  its 
individual  role,  while  for  the  unity  of  the  whole,  and 
for  the  uniform  acts  of  all  the  members  who  are  often 
called  upon  en  masse  to  flee  or  to  attack  an  enemy,  to 
emigrate,  etc.,  all  they  require  is  that  rapid  suggestion 
or  individual  transmission  of  the  corresponding  emotive 
state,  and  the  psychic  unity  which  results  from  it 
throughout  the  whole  group,  of  which  Espinas  was  one 
of  the  first  to  give  us  a  masterly  description.1 

Let  me  repeat  that  in  man,  on  the  contrary,  the 
very  existence  df  the  act  of  submission,  of  propitiation, 

1  Cf.  Francis  Galton,  Inquiries  into  Human  Faculties,  London,  Mac- 
millan,  1883  :  Gregarious  Instincts,  pp.  68-83  ;  Alf.  Espinas,  Les  Societes 
animates,  2nd  edition,  Paris,  Germer  Baillere,  1878,  sect.  Hi,  c,  ii :  La 
Societe  chez  les  insectes. 


158        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

of  appeal  for  pity,  teaches  us  that  human  society  has 
emerged  from  a  pre-existing  fratricidal  struggle,  and 
from  the  advantage  that  the  conqueror  reaped  when 
for  the  death  of  the  vanquished  he  substituted  certain 
parasitic  relations,  or  relations  of  exploitation,  which 
mark  a  beginning  of  differentiation  or  division  of  labour. 
Now,  these  dependent  relationships,  these  relations  of 
economic  and  technical  inequality,  given  the  organic 
equality  of  individuals,  could  be  preserved  only  by 
maintaining  in  the  vanquished  that  same  state  of  fear 
with  respect  to  the  conqueror  which  provoked  the  first 
act  of  submission,  and  which  ought  now  to  reduce  the 
vanquished  to  the  blindest  obedience. 

Thence  arises  the  necessity  for  the  conqueror,  now  the 
chief  of  a  small  society  of  his  vanquished  and  subjugated 
fellows,  to  keep  them  in  a  state  of  healthy  terror,  and 
therefore  of  using  every  available  means  capable  of 
giving  to  his  subjects,  always  increasing  in  number, 
the  highest  possible  idea  of  his  formidable  power.  He 
would  therefore  have  to  draw  more  and  more  advantage 
from  each  and  every  cosmic  event  inspiring  terror  or 
fear,  and  from  each  and  every  painful  accident  which 
befell  any  member  of  the  community,  by  representing 
each  of  these  facts  as  a  menace  or  a  personal  punishment 
emanating  directly  from  him,  or  that  he  had  expressly 
solicited  from  some  other  occult  authority,  his  potent 
ally.  And  in  this  there  is  not  always  a  question  of 
pure  astuteness,  for  as  he  himself  believed  in  the 
animism  of  nature  around  him,  he  could  not  do  less 
than  attribute  his  own  success  to  the  propitious 
aid  of  this  cosmic  force  or  that,  his  ally  and  protector, 
and  therefore  he  must  believe  in  his  intervention  and 


THE  RELIGIOUS  PHENOMENON  159 

must  have  recourse  to  it  at  every  serious  conjuncture 
of  life.1 

This  vague  religious  sentiment,  already  naturally 
more  or  less  diffused  among  all  human  beings,  was  thus, 
owing  to  this  action  of  religious  suggestion  exercised 
incessantly  by  the  chief,  and  owing  to  the  uniformity 
thereby  given  to  the  different  animistic  beliefs  of  indivi- 
duals, bound  to  become  day  by  day  more  powerful 
and  more  definite.  By  the  submission  and  devotion  it 
secured  in  this  way  from  the  vanquished  to  the  chief 
whose  efforts  had  succeeded  in  giving  rise  to  the  first 
nucleus  of  the  social  group,  by  the  blind  obedience  it 
imposed  upon  all  the  members  to  the  commands  of  a 
single  mind  directing  and  regulating  the  first  still  rudi- 
mentary social  relations,  religious  sentiment  itself  thus 
assumed  from  the  outset  the  task  of  consolidating  the 
social  order.  We  understand  then  how  its  activity  and 
the  development  of  its  own  organ  (the  special  and 
distinct  formation  of  which  dates  from  the  first  delega- 
tion of  certain  religious  functions  exercised  by  the 
chief  to  priests  charged  with  the  duty  of  representing 
him)  have  of  necessity  followed  a  path  parallel  to  the 
development  of  society ;  for  as  the  numbers  increased, 
the  need  was  more  and  more  felt  of  such  a  function  of 
social  consolidation  and  regulation,  adapted  to  make 
of  a  simple  amorphous  and  fluid  aggregate  of  individuals, 
otherwise  each  capable  of  leading  its  own  independent 
and  isolated  life,  one  single  consistent  whole,  and,  in 
fact,  a  real  social  organism. 

1  Against  the  theories  of  the  eighteenth  century  on  "  imposture  "  vide, 
among  others,  Salomon  Reinach,  Orpheus,  Histoire  generate  des  religions, 
Paris,  Picard,  1909,  pp.  12-19. 


160        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

It  follows  that  in  ancient  societies  religion  constitutes 
in  itself  alone  the  whole  "  psychic "  scaffolding  so 
indispensable  to  the  solidity  of  the  social  edifice,  and 
that  it  penetrates,  regulates,  directs  and  stimulates 
the  energy  of  each  member  of  the  community  at  each 
moment  of  his  existence. 

Thus  it  is  that  religion  raises  and  sustains  all  the 
social  institutions — beginning  with  that  of  individual 
or  collective  property — which  serve  as  dikes,  either  to 
contain  and  canalize  the  course  of  certain  series  of 
social  facts  or  relations,  or  to  oppose  an  irresistible 
barrier  to  antisocial  acts  or  relations.  Every  "  social 
thing,"  i.e.  that  it  is  of  collective  interest  to  fix  and  to 
preserve,  becomes  at  the  same  time  a  "  sacred  thing," 
which  may  not  be  touched  without  "  sin."  Civil 
obligation  and  religious  duty  are,  as  Sumner  Maine 
also  shows,  one  and  the  same  thing.  As  Reinach 
puts  it,  religion  is  therefore  nothing  but  an  aggregate 
of  taboos  opposed  to  the  free  exercise  of  individual 
faculties.1 

All  law  has  thus  a  purely  religious  origin,  and  the 
social  order  which  it  now  guarantees  in  our  civil  societies 
was  based  at  first  entirely  on  religion,  the  sanction  of 
which,  at  a  time  when  other  sanctions  were  technically 
of  no  avail  whatever,  remained  the  only  one  which 
could  be  really  efficacious.  Note  that  every  infraction 
of  the  taboo,  every  antisocial  act,  by  the  very  sanction 
that  it  necessitated,  gave  occasion  to  the  religious  organ 
to  exert  its  function,  and  that  with  an  energy  pro- 
portioned to  the  extent  to  which  society  had  experienced 

1  Sumner  Maine,  Ancient  Law  (1861),  London,  Murray,  1908,  pp.  3  et 
seq.,  16  et  seq. ;  Salomon  Reinach,  op.  cit. :  Hist.  gen.  des  retig.,  p.  4. 


THE  RELIGIOUS  PHENOMENON  161 

injury  and  to  the  consequent  need  of  strengthening  by 
this  sanction  the  respect  due  to  the  prohibition  which 
had  just  been  infringed  :  hence  the  continuous  exercise 
and  correlative  development  which  were  thus  assured 
to  that  organ. 

To  these  institutions  regulating  individual  acts  or 
relations  must  be  added  others  which  classified  all 
the  members  of  the  society  into  a  multitude  of  social 
compartments  according  to  age,  sex,  celibacy  or  mar- 
riage, profession,  caste,  and  so  on.  Each  of  these  special 
groups  is  essentially  organized  on  religious  bases,  and  to 
pass  from  one  to  the  other  it  is  necessary  to  submit  to 
the  corresponding  ceremonies  prescribed  by  religion. 
From  birth  to  death  the  individual  is  therefore  involved 
in  an  interminable  series  of  rites  of  fellowship,  initiation, 
consecration,  of  which  those  which  linger  on  in  our 
society  of  to-day,  like  circumcision,  baptism,  commu- 
nion, extreme  unction,  religious  marriage,  etc.,  give  us 
but  a  very  feeble  idea.  As  Van  Gennep  observes,  every 
society  may  be  compared  in  a  way  to  a  kind  of  house 
divided  into  many  rooms  and  corridors,  with  their  walls 
the  thicker  and  their  doors  the  narrower  in  proportion 
to  the  multiplication  of  the  religious  ceremonies  neces- 
sary to?pass  from  one  to  the  other.1 

Besides  this  work  of -static  consolidation  and  ordin- 
ance, religion^  was  further  entrusted  with  the  task  of 
determining  and /"provoking  directly  all  activities  of 
social  interest,  especially  those  the  efficacy  of  which 
absolutely  depended  on  their  simultaneous  and  co- 
ordinated character.  It  might  be  a  matter  of  folding 

1  Cf.  Van  Gennep,  Les  rites  dc  passage,  Paris,  Nourry,  1909,  e.g.  pp.  2» 
36,  271-6. 

II 


162        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

up  one's  tents  and  migrating  to  another  region,  and 
making  a  choice  of  a  new  temporary  or  permanent 
residence  ;  it  might  be  a  question  of  assembling  or 
going  a-hunting,  or  distributing  and  consuming  the 
game  ;  but  there  was  no  economic  act,  collective  or 
individual,  which  religion  had  not  clothed  with  a  sacred 
character,  and  had  thus  imposed  on  all  the  forms  neces- 
sary to  general  observance.  In  this  connection  there 
is  nothing  more  typical  than  the  agrarian  rites  and 
sacrifices — e.g.  those  of  Adonis,  Attis,  and  Osiris,  so 
widespread  in  the  ancient  world,  and  of  which  we  still 
have  a  remembrance  left  in  the  unleavened  bread  and 
the  paschal  lamb — by  their  very  origin  and  their  primi- 
tive significance  they  ultimately  directed,  guided,  and 
regulated  in  general  all  the  works  of  the  field — sowing, 
harvest,  irrigation,  etc.1 

It  is  this  need  of  disciplining  and  regulating  all  the 
details  of  everyday  collective  life  which  thus  gives  rise 
to  the  primitive  function  of  the  calendar,  which,  as 
Hubert  and  Mauss  point  out,  is  essentially  religious. 
The  first  calendars,  in  fact,  do  not  undertake  to 
measure  the  course  of  time  as  quantity ;  but  they 
proceed  from  the  qualitative  idea  of  time  composed 
of  parts  considered  by  religion  to  be  heterogeneous. 
Every  part  of  the  calendar,  every  portion  of  time, 
whatever  it  may  be,  always  has  in  it  a  sacred  char- 

1  Cf.  J.  G.  Frazer,  The  Golden  Bough,  3rd  edition,  Part  IV  :  Adonis, 
Attis,  Osiris,  London,  Macmillan,  1907,  in  particular  Bk.  Hi,  c.  iii  :  The 
Calendar  of  the  Egyptian  Farmer,  Rites  of  Irrigation,  Rites  of  Sowing, 
Rites  of  Harvest ;  Grant  Allen,  The  Evolution  of  the  Idea  of  God,  London, 
The  De  La  More  Press,  c.  xiii  :  Gods  of  Cultivation  •  c.  xiv  :  Corn  and 
Wine  Gods  ;  Goblet  d'Alviella,  Les  rites  de  la  moisson  et  les  commence- 
ments de  I 'agriculture,  "  Revue  de  1'histoire  des  religions,"  Paris,  Leroux, 
1898. 


THE  RELIGIOUS  PHENOMENON  163 

acter :  every  day  is  a  holiday  and  has  its  Saint ; 
every  hour  has  its  special  prayer.  Every  moment  of 
the  year  thus  carries  with  it  religious  prescriptions, 
positive  or  negative,  which  impress  a  fixed  and 
regular  course  on  the  whole  of  the  development  of 
social  life. 

We  may  note  that  the  more  solemn  and  complicated 
was  the  rite  that  accompanied  a  given  social  fact,  the 
more  the  recollection  of  the  fact  itself  was  perpetuated 
in  the  whole  community.  Thus  the  rites  which  conse- 
crated the  boundaries  of  a  recently  occupied  territory 
fixed  in'  the  imagination  of  all  the  bond  established 
between  this  fixed  portion  of  land  and  its  proprietor, 
whether  an  individual  or  the  community.  The  excom- 
munication inflicted  on  any  one  who  broke  a  taboo 
marked  with  indelible  mark  the  antisocial  individual 
against  whom  all  were  now  fully  warned.  The  rite 
which  accompanied  the  entrance  of  a  member  of  a 
tribe  into  one  of  the  social  compartments  alluded  to 
above  formed  a  kind  of  mnemic  registration,  the  utility 
of  which  for  the  individual  and  the  community  cannot 
be  doubted,  if  we  think  of  the  value  of  our  own  adminis- 
trative registrations  which  are  their  equivalents  and 
substitutes.  The  ceremonies  which  accompanied  the 
completion  of  a  given  kind  of  rural  work  helped  to  keep 
alive  in  all  the  idea  of  that  act,  with  all  the  necessary 
details  which  might  otherwise  have  been  forgotten  or 
altered.  The  appropriate  rites  of  the  successive  feasts 
of  the  calendar  assured  the  annual  return  of  the  same 
social  acts  ;  thus  they  gave  rise  to  and  strengthened 
the  traditional  and  preservative  tendency  of  society, 
which  is  not  one  of  the  least  factors  in  social  cohe- 


164        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

sion.  Religion  therefore  acted  quite  properly  as  a  real 
mnemic  organ,  adapted  to  preserve  in  the  community 
all  the  memories  and  to  communicate  to  it  all  the  habits 
or  routines  which  would  be  of  any  advantage  to  it. 
And  the  more  the  social  organism  felt  the  value  of 
reinforcing  certain  mnemic  registrations,  or  of  stereo- 
typing certain  acts,  the  better  was  it  understood  that 
the  corresponding  rite  must  be  complicated  and  be- 
come invested  with  a  greater  solemnity,  so  that  here 
again  the  need  created  and  developed  the  organ  capable 
of  satisfying  it. 

Religious  action  contributed,  finally,  to  the  consoli- 
dation of  the  social  edifice  by  developing  in  all  the  mem- 
bers of  the  same  community  that  sense  of  psychic 
communion,  equivalent  in  many  ways  to  the  sense  of 
gregariousness  referred  to  above,  and  an  immediate 
consequence  of  the  same  mental  and  affective  orienta- 
tion which  religion  succeeded  in  producing  in  all  its 
ceremonies  and  on  innumerable  occasions  by  means  of 
the  most  varied  suggestions. 

Such  in  broad  outline  are  the  different  means  by  which 
religion  succeeded  in  satisfying  the  need  for  cohesion 
and  organization  felt  by  society — a  need  which  grew 
as  the  number  of  members  in  the  community  increased 
and  its  territory  became  more  extended.  But  it  was  in 
time  of  war  that  this  need  for  consolidation  and  unifica- 
tion became  particularly  marked,  and  that  the  religious 
function  assumed  the  importance  of  a  matter  of  life  or 
death. 

No  social  activity,  in  fact,  set  the  religious  organ  in 
motion  more  notably  than  war,  and  it  therefore  exer- 
cised on  it  an  intense  trophic  action. 


THE  RELIGIOUS  PHENOMENON  165 

The  ancient  fratricidal  struggle  between  man  and 
man,  from  which  as  we  have  seen  the  first  social  embryos 
arose,  continued  in  their  successors  with  no  less  fury 
than  in  the  past.  As  war,  i.e.  as  struggle  of  the  whole 
of  one  community  against  another,  it  claimed  from  the 
social  organism  the  same  co-ordinated,  simultaneous, 
and  rapid  action  of  its  different  elements  that  the  animal 
organism  is  capable  of  providing  for  the  individual 
struggle.  It  was  a  question,  in  other  words,  of  giving 
to  a  naturally  incoherent  assemblage  of  individuals 
the  supple  and  powerful  vigour  of  a  beast  of  prey. 

If  an  act  of  insubordination  were  harmful  in  time 
of  peace,  reluctant  obedience  in  time  of  war  might 
be  absolutely  fatal.  Then  more  than  ever  it  was 
necessary  to  guarantee  the  blindest  and  promptest 
obedience  of  all  to  their  leader,  to  compel  isolated 
individuals  to  behave  themselves  towards  their  chief 
in  the  same  way,  so  to  speak,  as  the  somatic  cells  of 
the  organism  with  respect  to  the  higher  psychic  centres. 

Now  it  was  precisely  this  absolute  submission  that 
religion  was  above  all  called  upon  to  guarantee  and 
that  it  secured  to  perfection.  "  It  cannot,"  says 
Spencer,  "  be  repeated  often  enough,  that  from  the 
most  remote  times  to  our  own  days  the  unvarying 
and  essential  action  of  the  priesthood  at  all  times  and 
in  all  places  and  in  the  name  of  every  creed  has  been 
to  inculcate  obedience."  I 

Thus,  for  instance,  the  sacred  or  divine  character  of 
the  prince,  which  the  religious  organ  tended  to  fortify 
incessantly  in  countless  different  ways,  made  the  smallest 
act  of  insubordination  in  general  an  act  of  sacrilege. 

1  Spencer,  Principes  de  sociologic,  Paris,  Alcan,  1887,  t.  iv,  p.  174. 


166        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

To  guarantee  fidelity  and  discipline  in  given  circum- 
stances of  unusual  importance,  recourse  everywhere 
and  always  was  had  to  the  oath,  i.e.  to  a  religious  act 
by  which  the  man  who  pledged  his  word  called  down 
upon  himself,  through  the  priest  who  administered  the 
oath,  the  divine  anger  in  case  of  perjury. 

It  was  religion  again  which  succeeded  wonderfully 
in  evoking  and  intensifying  all  the  "  social  instincts  " 
most  likely  to  guarantee  by  their  "  release  "  the  simul- 
taneous and  overwhelming  outburst  of  the  whole  com- 
munity, such  as  tribal  or  racial  hate,  or  the  most  ardent 
fanaticism.1 

The  favourable  responses  of  the  oracles,  the  construc- 
tion and  consecration  of  votive  temples,  and  the  other 
solemn  ceremonies  at  the  beginning  of  each  war,  the 
blessing  of  the  troops,  of  arms,  or  standards,  sacrifices, 
prayers,  and  thanksgivings  before,  during,  and  after 
each  battle,  the  carrying  of  the  gods,  the  holy  ark,  or 
other  sacred  objects  on  to  the  field  of  battle — all  these 
were  so  many  religious  manifestations  satisfying  the 
need  of  inspiring  the  combatants  with  a  great  faith 
in  victory,  which  is  in  itself  an  essential  element  in 
success.* 

By  these  means,  which  thus  we  see  always  employed 
by  religion  to  adapt  more  effectively  the  community 
for  the  collective  struggle,  we  see  how  war  must  double 
the  feverish  activity  of  the  religious  function.  It  will 
consequently  appear  to  us  very  natural  that  at  each 
period  of  prolonged  and  bloody  wars  the  religious  organ 

1  Cf.  Letourneau,  Uevoluiion  religieuse,  Paris,  Vigot,  1908,  p.  553  ;  and 
La  guerre  dans  les  diverses  races  humaines,  Paris,  Bataille,  1895,  pp.  41, 
128,  131,  161-80,  354,  384,  405-7,  413,  448,  522,  etc. 

*  Cf.  Spencer,  op.  cit.,  t.  iv,  c.  x  :  Fondions  militaries  des  pretres. 


THE  RELIGIOUS  PHENOMENON          167 

should  be  developed,  and  the  intensity  of  the  religious 
sentiment  should  be  increased ;  and  inversely  every 
prolonged  interval  of  peace  must  have  lessened  the 
religious  activity  of  the  organ  and  therefore  have 
weakened  the  religious  sentiment. 

Thus  we  see  that  eminently  warlike  tribes  and  peoples 
are  also  the  most  religious,  and  that  among  the  different 
characters  belonging  to  the  militarist  type  of  societies 
may  be  distinguished  that  "  of  an  enormously  developed 
priesthood."  l 

After  the  great  Roman  peace  we  see  the  religious 
sentiment  weakened  to  such  a  point  that  it  can  no  longer 
offer  any  resistance  to  the  proletarian  agitation  of 
Christianism,  and  inversely  we  see  in  the  Middle  Ages 
the  most  intense  fanaticism  side  by  side  with  a  state 
of  perpetual  war.3 

Buckle  also  shows  us  in  his  masterly  pages  how, the 
incessant  struggles  between  the  Christians  and  Moors 
in  Spain,  and  the  no  less  furious  and  bloody  struggle 
between  the  English  and  Scotch,  which  lasted  from  the 
end  of  the  thirteenth  century  to  the  middle  of  the 
sixteenth  century,  provoked  on  both  sides  a  violent 
religious  exaltation  of  which  the  effects  were  felt  long 
after  in  the  history  of  those  countries. 3 

To  sum  up  these  far  too  cursory  remarks,  we  see  then 
that  to  all  the  causes  mentioned  above,  which  have 

v  Cf.  Lubbock,  On  the  Origin  of  the  Civilisation  of  Man,  London , 
Longmans,  Green  &  Co.,  1889,  p.  214  ;  and  Spencer,  op.  cit,  t.  iv, 
pp.  162-3. 

a  Cf.  Renan,  Histoire  des  origines  du  Christianisme,  Les  Apotres,  Paris, 
C.  Levy,  1884,  c.  xviii  :  Etat  du  monde  vers  le  milieu  du  premier  siecle ; 
and  Kidd,  L' evolution  sociale,  Paris,  Guillaumin,  1896,  pp.  121-7. 

3  Buckle,  Histoire  de  la  Civilisation  en  Anglcterre,  Paris,  Marpon  et 
Flammarion,  1881,  t.  iv  and  v. 


168        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

tended  to  develop  in  societies  the  religious  organ,  even 
in  times  of  peace,  there  must  yet  be  added  another, 
that  produced  by  war,  which  we  must  consider  as 
the  greatest,  the  most  universal,  and  the  most  funda- 
mental of  all  social  activities.1 

Hence  if  we  consider  the  nature  and  importance  of 
all  these  causes  which  have  never  ceased  in  all  societies 
to  contribute  to  the  formation  and  progressive  develop- 
ment of  the  religious  organ,  the  religious  phenomenon 
from  the  sociological  point  of  view  loses  the  paradoxical 
character  it  had  at  first. 

But  then  this  paradoxical  character  is  also  lost  if 
considered  purely  from  the  psychological  point  of  view. 
For  we  cannot  fail  to  understand  the  enormous  formative 
influence  that  must  be  exercised  upon  the  mental  and 
affective  life  by  this  ever-acting  organ  of  collective 
suggestion,  of  social  hypnotization  ;  which  daily,  and 
almost  at  every  hour  of  the  day,  laboured  to  spread  the 
growth  of  faith  and  to  inculcate  dogma ;  which  main- 
tained believers  in  a  continuously  emotive  state,  by  the 
nightmare  of  the  awful  vengeance  of  the  gods  or  by  the 
mirage  of  ineffable  celestial  rewards  ;  which  appealed 
to  every  form  of  art — architecture,  sculpture,  painting, 
the  dance,  music,  and  poetry — to  present  the  divinity 
in  the  most  awe-inspiring  forms,  to  increase  the  mys- 
terious sense  of  sacred  things,  or  to  raise  mystical 
exaltation  to  the  point  of  ecstasy  ;  which  made 
a  wonderful  use  of  ritualism,  that  is  to  say,  of  the 
mechanical  and  always  identical  repetition  of  the 

1  For  a  more  complete  development  of  this  thesis  vide  Eugenio  Rignano, 
Un  socialisms  en  harmonic  avec  la  doctrine  economique  liberale  Paris, 
Giard  et  Briere,  1904,  last  chapter,  sect.  3  :  De  la  fonction  sociale  de  la 
religion. 


THE  RELIGIOUS  PHENOMENON  169 

same  ceremonies,  to  turn  the  mind  in  certain  fixed 
directions,  and  to  impress  upon  it  irresistible  habits 
of  thought.1 

However,  thanks  to  the  progress  of  human  civiliza- 
tion, we  see  all  these  causes,  which  have  contributed 
in  the  past  to  the  creation  and  development  of  the 
religious  organ,  growing  now  weaker  and  weaker, 
especially  in  the  civil  societies  of  our  own  time,  and 
tending  one  after  another  to  disappear,  because  there 
have  been  gradually  formed  distinct  organs  for  those 
functions,  always  useful,  which  religion  alone  hitherto 
exercised,  or  because  the  need  of  others  for  these 
functions  of  religion  is  no  longer  felt. 

It  is  needless  to  insist  at  length  on  the  fact  that  the 
legal  organ  and  the  administrative  organ,  in  the  widest 
sense  of  the  word,  which  used  to  be  attached  to  that  of 
religion,  have  been  gradually  differentiated  and  separ- 
ated from  it,  until  now  we  may  call  them  completely 
"  lay."  Every  new  need  for  the  consolidation  of  the 
social  order  no  longer  sets  in  motion  the  religious  organ, 
but  only  the  legal  or  the  administrative  apparatus. 
Social  institutions  and  law  in  general  have  been  trans- 
formed and  developed  without  the  slightest  interven- 
tion of  the  religious  organ.  To  all  forms  of  antisocial 
activity  are  now  opposed  legal  sanctions  or  preventive 
measures  of  more  or  less  value,  but  recourse  is  no  longer 
had  to  any  new  or  better  devised  religious  sanction. 
For  the  old  religious  organization,  founded  on  the 
division  of  society  into  so  many  compartments  with 

1  Cf.   Guyau,  L'trrcligion  de  I'avenir,   Paris,  Alcan,    1905,  pp.   107-8, 
227-312  ;  and  Letourneau,  op.  cit.  :  L'fool.  relig.,  p.  385. 


170        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

a  religious  basis,  the  modern  tendency  is  to  substitute 
a  purely  administrative  or  civil  organization. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  science  applied  to  all  the 
arts  which  now  directs  the  practical  and  economic 
activity  of  the  whole  of  society  ;  it  is  to  it  alone,  i.e. 
to  a  later  development  of  the  social  organ  of  scientific 
research,  of  teaching  and  popularization  of  knowledge 
and  of  the  best  technical  methods,  that  appeal  is  made 
under  all  circumstances  in  which  a  new  and  imperious 
necessity  makes  itself  felt.  Thus  also  in  this  domain, 
in  which  religion  in  former  days  exercised  its  regulating 
functions,  it  has  gradually  lost  all  the  ground. 

In  the  same  way  the  regular  and  ordered  course  of 
social  life,  that  the  calendar  established  by  its  daily 
prescriptions,  is  naturally  secured  at  present  by  a  mass 
of  social  machinery,  springing  from  an  ever  more 
specialized  and  extended  division  of  labour. 

No  longer  do  we  utilize  the  mnemic  function,  which 
as  we  have  seen  was  connected  in  a  more  or  less  acces- 
sory manner  to  all  religious  ceremonies,  because  its 
place  is  taken  by  administrative  registration,  which 
in  practice  has  given  rise  to  notable  progress ;  for 
example,  the  mnemic  function  of  the  so-called  rites 
of  passage,  to  which  I  have  referred  above,  and 
whose  mystic  symbolism  contained  so  much  sug- 
gestive poetry,  is  now  better  done  by  dry  civil 
formalities ;  the  solemnity  of  the  pact  or  contract 
sworn  before  the  god  or  on  the  sacred  writings, 
which  was  remembered  only  in  its  general  lines  and 
only  by  those  who  were  present  at  the  ceremony, 
is  replaced  by  the  legal  transcription  of  the  contract 
which  sets  forth  the  act  in  its  smallest  details,  and 


THE  RELIGIOUS  PHENOMENON  171 

which  all  concerned  may  examine  when  need  arises  ; 
for  the  consecration  of  boundaries  we  now  prefer,  as 
somewhat  safer  in  case  of  dispute,  the  ordnance  map 
or  cadastral  survey,  and  so  on. 

As  for  the  need  of  "  psychic,  communion,"  it  corre- 
sponded formerly  to  an  essential  and  vital  condition 
of  the  social  organism,  when,  from  the  importance  at 
that  time  of  domestic  economy,  and  from  the  fact  that 
division  of  labour  was  still  rudimentary,  the  different 
family  units,  or  other  fractions  of  the  community,  were 
individually  capable  of  an  autonomous  and  independent 
life,  and  would  therefore  have  had  a  continual  tendency 
to  disaggregation  and  separation  but  for  the  artificial 
psychic  bond  by  which  religion  kept  them  united  ;  but 
this  need  became  felt  less  and  less  as  a  much  more 
natural  and  powerful  bond  was  formed  and  strengthened, 
namely,  that  multitude  of  economic  relations  which 
are  directly  derived  from  a  more  and  more  specialized 
and  extended  division  of  labour,  so  as  to  create  between 
the  different  units  or  social  fractions  a  material  and 
indissoluble  dependence.  Thus  we  see  that  the  religious 
bond  is  replaced  in  society  by  the  economic,  and  to 
"  psychic  communion "  succeeds  the  sentiment  of 
social  solidarity  which  is  no  longer  the  result  of  sugges- 
tion, but  qf  the  action  of  the  reasoning  faculty. 

And  finally  war,  which  as  we  have  seen  was  only 
the  continuation  under  the  collective  form  of  the  pre- 
social  individual  struggle  for  existence,  from  being 
chronic  as  it  was  when  produced  by  the  violent  pressure 
of  the  population  on  the  means  of  subsistence,  has 
gradually  occurred  only  from  time  to  time,  and  then 
has  become  rarer  and  rarer. 


172       ESSAYS  IN   SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

In  fact,  parallel  to  the  destructive  work  of  war,  the 
productive  forces  followed  an  ascendant  progress,  which 
was  partly  due  to  war  itself  :  for  example,  slavery  per- 
mitted for  the  first  time  an  embryonic  division  of  labour, 
and  made  labour  compulsory  and  therefore  more  intense 
and  better  co-ordinated  to  the  common  effort ;  simi- 
larly, the  fusion  of  small  groups  into  larger  and  larger 
social  groups  gave  an  opportunity  for  the  unceasing 
specialization  and  extension  of  the  division  of  labour. 
For  a  greater  part  this  progress  was  due,  on  the  con- 
trary, to  the  normal  course  of  internal  economic  evolu- 
tion, continuously  kept  in  motion  by  the  moderate 
stage  of  food  pressure.  This  continual  improvement 
of  production  rendered  rarer  and  rarer  the  violent  crises 
of  social  pressure  on  the  means  of  subsistence  which 
necessarily  brought  war  in  their  train.  At  the  same 
time,  owing  to  the  absolute  increase  in  population  made 
possible  by  economic  progress,  war  became  less  and  les$ 
capable  of  relieving  this  food  pressure,  by  such  means 
of  destruction  as  cannibalism,  the  raiding  of  flocks  and 
herds,  or  slaughter  of  the  enemy  in  order  to  occupy 
the  territory  on  which  he  grazed  his  cattle  or  grew 
his  crops. 

In  proportion,  however,  as  food  pressure,  properly 
so  called,  ceased  to  be  a  cause  of  war,  another  and  ever 
more  potent  cause  arose,  due  to  the  economic  interests 
of  the  ruling  class — a  class  co-existing  from  the  outset 
with  society  itself,  evolving  and  perpetuating  itself 
under  the  most  divergent  forms  of  economic  exploita- 
tion. But  in  the  same  manner  as  the  continual  progress 
of  productive  forces  lessened  food  pressure,  and  at  the 
same  time  made  war  an  absolutely  unsuitable  method 


THE  RELIGIOUS  PHENOMENON  173 

of  relieving  it,  so  the  fresh  progress  realized  later  in 
production,  and  in  particular  the  remarkable  advances 
of  modern  times,  have  not  only  opened  a  number  of  new 
markets  for  the  money  lust  of  the  different  dominant 
classes  and  sub-classes  of  capitalists,  but  by  the  very 
fact  of  creating  international  economic  relations,  ever 
growing  in  number  and  in  intimate  relationship,  they 
have  led  to  the  following  situation,  that  even  should 
their  own  country  win  a  war,  these  dominant  classes 
and  sub-classes,  instead  of  making  profits  in  the  course 
of  a  war  between  civilized  nations,  would  make  enormous 
losses.  The  present  war  will  be  the  most  conclusive 
and  convincing  demonstration  of  this  truth. 

With  this  very  high  stag^  of  productive  perfection 
attained  by  human  society,  wit.  this  very  remarkable 
degree  of  development  now  attained  for  the  first  time 
by  economic  evolution,  war  is  condemned  to  disappear, 
as,  for  analogous  economic  reasons  mentioned  above, 
have  disappeared  from  among  us  the  ancient  horrors  of 
cannibalism  or  the  total  destruction  of  the  enemy 
population.1 

And  this  fact,  that  war  is  ever  becoming  rarer,  and 
tends  gradually  to  disappear,  deprives  the  activity  of 
the  religic'is  function  of  another  of  its  most  powerful 
stimulants. 

To  sum  up,  we  see,  then,  that  if  in  the  past  innumer- 
able cLfferent  and  pressing  social  needs  were  always 
setting  in  motion  and  had  the  effect  of  developing  the 
religious  organ,  in  modern  times,  on  the  contrary,  in 
consequence  of  the  progress  of  social  evolution,  all  the 

*  For  a  development  of  this  thesis  vide  Eug.  Rignano,  op.  cit. :  Un 
socialismc,  etc.,  last  chapter,  sect.  4  :  De  la  guerre. 


174        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

essential  motives  of  the  activity  of  the  religious  function 
have  insensibly  ceased  to  act,  so  that  the  religious  organ 
is  condemned  to  a  state  of  more  and  more  marked 
disuse,  the  slow  but  inevitable  consequence  of  which  is — 
atrophy. 

It  is  not  surprising,  then,  that  to  this  state  of  increas- 
ing inactivity  corresponds  in  the  human  mind  of  to-day 
the  gradual  shaking  off  of  every  ^^d  of  dogma  and  a 
general  weakening  of  faith.  The  more  so  as,  side  by 
side  with  this  progressive  inaction  of  the  religious 
function,  we  have,  on  the  one  hand,  the  wonderful 
development  of  the  productive  processes  involving 
that  of  all  science  in  general,  and,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  fact,  still  more  important,  of  the  diffusion  in  all 
social  strata  of  an  ever-growing  technico-scientific 
culture,  due  to  the  never-ceasing  application  of  indus- 
trial discoveries  and  to  the  technical  instruction  of  the 
working  classes  which  the  dominant  capitalist  class 
itself  directly  encourages,  as  the  skilful  workman  is 
now  indispensable  to  it.  The  prodigious  development 
of  science  in  every  branch  of  knowledge,  the  diffusion 
of  technical  culture  and  of  instruction  in  general,  the 
popularization  of  the  conception  of  natural  laws,  immu- 
table, and  regulating  the  various  transformations  of 
matter,  all  these  facts,  which  give  to  the  mind  a  scientific 
as  opposed  to  a  religious  outlook,  ultimately  exercise  a 
destructive  influence  on  religious  beliefs,  which  becomes 
more  and  more  efficacious,  in  proportion  as  the  organ 
destined  to  support  and  strengthen  those  beliefs  has 
lost  from  day  to  day  its  functional  energy. 

Thus  was  accomplished,  not  merely  in  the  restricted 
circle  of  an  intellectual  dlite,  but  gradually  in  all  the 


THE  RELIGIOUS  PHENOMENON          175 

social  classes,  that  transition  of  human  thought  from 
the  primordial  animist  or  theological  to  the  positive 
scientific  form,  the  evolution  celebrated  in  Comte's 
famous  formula.  But  it  was  not  accomplished,  as  the 
great  philosopher  thought,  solely  by  the  innate  virtue 
of  the  human  mind  tending  inevitably  of  itself  to  move 
in  the  philosophical-positive  direction,  requiring  no 
external  stimulus  and  without  any  possibility  of  recoil. 
The  transition,  on  the  contrary,  has  been  aided  by  a 
number  of  social  circumstances,  all  of  which  now  co- 
operate for  the  first  time  in  the  same  direction,  of  which 
the  first  and  most  important  are  the  slow  but  con- 
tinuous atrophy  of  the  religious  organ,  and  the  simul- 
taneous development  of  a  marvellous  technique  of 
production,  more  and  more  regulating  and  subordinat- 
ing the  forces  of  nature  and  all  the  manifestations  of 
matter.1 

But  other  psychological  and  sociological  factors  of 
secondary  importance  are  acting  in  their  turn,  either 
retarding  or  hastening  this  gradual  enfranchisement 
of  society  from  the  obsession  of  the  "  divine." 

The  rapidity  of  such  a  progress  differs,  for  example, 
according  to  the  mental  character  of  each  people  or 
race.  From  this  point  of  view  we  see  a  typical  diversity 
between  the  Anglo-Saxon  and  the  French  mentalities. 

While  the  former  excels  in  the  capacity  of  register- 
ing and  retaining  a  number  of  facts  of  the  most  dispar- 
ate and  independent  nature,  and  is  less  inclined  to 
the  protracted  tension  accompanying  a  long  process  of 

1  Vide  Eug.  Rignano,  La  sociologie  dans  le  cours  de  philosophic  positive 
d'Auguste  Comte,  Paris,  Giard  et  Briere,  1902,  pp.-  38-40  ;  Italian  edition, 
Palermo,  Sandron,  1904,  pp.  109-13. 


176        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

reasoning,  the  latter,  on  the  contrary,  seems  incapable 
of  assimilating  so  large  and  chaotic  a  mass  of  facts, 
and  tends  to  connect  them  as  far  as  possible  by  a  logical 
bond  and  to  embrace  them  in  a  synthesis.  The  first 
of  the  two  mentalities,  first  and  foremost  practical,  is, 
to  use  a  strong  expression  of  Taine,  nothing  but  a  simple 
collection  of  facts  ;  the  other,  the  classic  mentality, 
as  the  same  writer  calls  it,  is  nothing  but  a  reasoning 
machine.  In  fact,  the  qualities  of  breadth  and 
depth,  which  according  to  Duhem  form  the  essential 
distinction  between  the  mentalities  of  scientific 
Englishmen  and  Frenchmen,  also  form  the  differ- 
ence we  mark  between  the  average  mentalities  of 
the  two  races.1 

It  is  precisely  to  this  nature  of  the  British  mentality, 
less  ready  than  the  French  to  seize  upon  the  logical 
incompatibilities  between  religious  beliefs  and  scientific 
truths,  that  is  at  least  partly  due  the  fact  that  the 
weakening  and  disappearance  of  faith  is  taking  place 
more  slowly  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  than  in  the  Latin  race. 
While  the  Latin  race  passes  suddenly  and  without 
transition  from  Catholicism  to  real  and  complete  irre- 
ligion,  the  Anglo-Saxon,  on  the  contrary,  proceeds  by 
steps,  rejecting  one  by  one  and  not  in  the  mass  the 
different  religious  absurdities,  and  permitting  the 
appearance  of  sects  which  are  constantly  springing 
up,  whose  common  feature  is  the  more  and  more 
marked  tendency  to  eliminate  all  beliefs  that  are 

1  Cf.  Taine,  Notes  sur  I'Angleterre,  Paris,  Hachette,  1845,  c.  viii  :.  De 
I'esprit  anglais  ;  Les  origines  de  la  France  contemporaine,  Paris,  Hachette, 
Bk.  iii,  c.  ii  :  L'esprit  classique  ;  and  Duhem,  La  theorie  physique,  son  objet 
el  sa  structure,  Paris,  Chevalier  et  Riviere,  1906,  Part  I,  c.  iv,  par.  i  :  Les 
csprits  amplcs  et  les  csprits  profonds. 


THE  RELIGIOUS  PHENOMENON          177 

precise    and    concrete,  and    to   reduce   religion    to    a 
mere  symbolical  morality.1 

Further,  the  religious  organ,  by  favouring  the  develop- 
ment of  a  priestly  caste  economically  distinct  from  the 
rest,  and  especially  as  a  consequence  of  the  use  that  is 
made  of  it  by  the  leading  social  classes  in  the  defence 
of  their  own  interests,  also  enters  into  the  great  his- 
torico-materialistic  drama  of  the  struggle  between 
classes.  In  past  times,  when  certain  classes  had  become 
so  powerful  that  they  could  successfully  resist  those 
who  till  then  had  been  the  dominant  classes,  they  were 
urged  by  their  economic  interests,  when  they  were 
checked  in  their  efforts  to  bring  the  religious  organ  to 
their  side,  to  provoke  religious  revolutions  or  reforms, 
without  shaking  the  religious  sentiment  itself.  In 
more  modern  times,  on  the  contrary,  this  same  interest 
leads  to  a  frontal  attack  on  the  very  principle  of  religion, 
and  thus  on  its  side  contributes  a  notable  impulse  to 
the  more  or  less  rapid  propagation  of  irreligion.  Before 
the  French  Revolution,  for  instance,  the  vogue  of  the 
Voltairean  spirit  is  explained  by  the  conflict  between  the 
bourgeoisie  and  the  religious  organ,  which  was  then  in 
the  service  of  the  feudal  rights  ;  but  the  secret  or  open 
support  which,  on  the  contrary,  it  nowadays  receives 
from  the  same  bourgeoisie,  and  the  appearance  of  a 
religious  reawakening  which  sometimes  follows  from 
it  in  certain  countries  or  districts,  finds  its  economic 
explanation  in  the  powerful  help  that  religion  can  now 

1  Vide  in  Renan,  Etudes  d'histoirc  religieuse,  Paris,  Michel  Levy,  1864, 
the  typical  religious  movement  of  Channing  in  the  United  States  ;  and 
Guyau,  op.  cit.,  Part  II,  c.  ii :  La  foi  symbolique  et  morale  ;  dissolution  de 
la  foi  symbolique. 

12 


178        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

give  to  the  capitalist  class  by  delaying  the  outbreak 
of  proletarian  demands.1 

But  the  religious  sentiment  is  endangered  by  this  very 
reliance  of  the  capitalist  classes  upon  its  aid  :  in  the 
struggle  with  the  supporters  of  capitalist  privilege,  the 
labour  classes  and  Socialists,  all  the  world  over,  are 
carrying  on  active  anti-religious  propaganda. 

Differences  in  ethnic  mentality,  economic  motives 
of  interested  classes,  and  many  other  factors  of  less 
importance — such  as  the  frequency  of  earthquakes 
and  other  tellurian  cataclysms  in  certain  countries 
(Buckle),  the  dangers  inherent  in  certain  local  industries 
(the  Breton  fisheries),  the  solitude  in  which  certain 
scattered  populations  are  forced  to  live,  and  many  other 
causes  besides — may  thus  more  or  less  hasten  or  retard 
the  tendency  of  the  modern  society  towards  an  irreligion 
which  day  by  day  is  obviously  extending  its  frontiers  ; 
but  these  are  merely  disturbing  elements,  more  or  less 
negligible,  in  comparison  with  the  powerful  movement 
of  general  evolution  which  the  other  much  more  deeply 
seated  causes  I  have  referred  to  seem  to  render  hence- 
forth irresistible  and  inevitable. 

We  know,  however,  there  have  been  of  late  various 
arguments  against  this  definitive  decline  of  the  super- 
natural and  the  sacred,  announced  by  so  many  signs  on 
the  social  horizon  ;  they  may  be  grouped  into  two  not 
quite  independent  classes,  to  which  I  will  now  devote 
a  few  remarks. 

Kidd  maintains  that  religion  must  always  be  a  con- 
dition of  social  survival,  in  the  sense  that  irreligious 
societies  are  doomed  to  perish  in  the  universal  struggle 

1  Vide  the  following  Essay :  Historic  Materialism. 


THE  RELIGIOUS  PHENOMENON  179 

for  life  in  which  they  come  into  conflict  with  societies 
that  remain  religious.  His  fundamental  idea  appears 
to  be  that  a  society  composed  of  individuals  guided  by 
reason  alone  will  be  so  occupied  with  the  present,  i.e. 
the  greatest  happiness  of  the  greatest  number  of  their 
own  generation,  that  they  will  pay  no  attention  to  the 
future  of  the  species.  The  role  of  religion  would  there- 
fore be  to  bring  society  to  that  anti-rational  outlook  on 
things  which  would  secure  it  the  best  conditions  for 
future  success. 

And  what  is  the  nature  of  this  supreme  principle  of 
anti-rational  conduct  inculcated  in  modern  societies 
by  Christianity  with  the  object  of  guaranteeing  to  it 
the  best  conditions  of  success  ?  According  to  Kidd  it 
would  be  a  principle,  the  nascent  germ  of  which  is  in 
this  religion,  but  which,  having  been  latent  for  some 
eighteen  hundred  years  at  least,  can  only  now  at  last 
develop  and  bear  fruit.  It  is  the  principle  of  equality, 
with  which  is  interwoven  the  henceforth  irresistible 
tendency  to  make  equal  for  all  individuals  the  initial 
conditions  of  the  economic  struggle ;  this  system 
which  guarantees  the  survival  only  of  the  best  would 
ipso  facto  secure  the  survival  of  the  Christian  society 
as  a  whole  over  any  other  society  persisting  in  a  less 
equalizing  regime.1 

Kidd's  theory  is  really  very  curious ;  for  it  destroys 
in  its  development  everything  that  is  at  first  attractive 
in  the  fundamental  idea  on  which  it  is  based.  We  could 
have  understood,  for  instance,  how,  given  the  author's 

1  Cf.  Kidd,  op.  cit. :  V evolution  sociale  ;  and  Principles  of  Western  Civili- 
sation, London,  Macmillan,  1908  ;  and  The  Two  Principal  Laws  of  Socio- 
log)',  "  Scientia,"  1907,  IV-4,  and  1908,  V-i, 


i8o       ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

point  of  departure,  he  might  have  been  inclined  to  prove 
that  a  non-equitable  regime,  i.e.  -one  that  does  not 
guarantee  the  greatest  happiness  of  the  greatest  number 
of  its  living  members,  may  also  be  the  better  adapted 
to  secure  victory  in  the  mass-struggle,  or  war,  against 
other  societies — as  is  the  case  in  societies  of  a  despotico- 
military  type ;  from  which  he  would  have  concluded 
that  religion,  the  guarantee  and  support  of  such  a  non- 
equitable  regime,  has  up  to  now  been  the  condition 
sine  qud  non  of  social  survival.  But  no  !  in  spite  of 
all  the  teachings  of  history,  and  of  even  the  most  obvious 
facts  lying  before  our  eyes,  led  astray  by  the  spirit  of 
the  proletarian  demands  of  primitive  Christianity  which 
quickly  gave  place  to  the  contrary  tendencies  common 
to  all  religions,  Kidd  attributes  to  faith,  which  he 
supposes  to  be  still  alive,  the  movement  of  the  society 
of  to-day  in  favour  of  the  working  classes,  a  movement 
which  on  the  contrary  is  the  direct  result  of  the  general 
weakening  of  the  religious  sentiment,  bringing  in  its 
train  the  rational  proletarian  agitation  for  a  greater 
measure  of  social  justice. 

But  apart  from  the  particular  development  which 
he  has  given  to  this  concept,  we  are  bound  to  reject  as 
inadmissible  the  very  principle  from  which  he  has 
started.  I  refer  to  the  power  he  attributes  to  natural 
selection  to  fix  the  social  conditions  which,  while  harm- 
ful to  our  present  society,  may  secure  its  success  in  the 
future.  Kidd,  saturated  with  the  theories  of  Weismann, 
has  extended  to  society  Weismann's  biological  concep- 
tion, by  which,  in  natural  selection,  the  utility  of  the 
individual  comes  after  that  of  the  species,  so  that  somatic 
characters  and  functional  particularities  would  be  fixed, 


THE  RELIGIOUS  PHENOMENON  181 

beginning  with  physiological  death  itself,  which,  while 
prejudicial  to  the  individual,  are  none  the  less  useful 
to  the  species.  But  this  conception  of  Weismann's  is 
now  out  of  date,  even  in  the  domain  of  biology,  because 
of  the  decreasing  influence  now  attributed  to  the  selec- 
tive process  in  the  evolution  of  species  ;  and  we  could 
in  no  sense  admit,  for  the  social  organisms  considered 
as  so  many  antagonistic  units,  those  immense  hecatombs 
of  vanquished  and  that  scanty  band  of  survivors  upon 
which  the  Nee-Darwinian  school  is  obliged  to  depend 
in  defending  the  claims  to  omnipotence  of  natural  selec- 
tion. Lastly,  considering  the  ever-increasing  respect 
that  is  now  being  paid  to  the  theories  of  Lamarck 
on  the  function  which  creates  the  organ,  sociological 
science,  less  than  any  other  science,  can  no  longer  admit 
that  an  organ  may  arise  and  be  developed,  unless  it  is 
preceded  by  some  function  which  responds  to  certain 
effective  requirements  of  living  society,  and  which  by 
its  repeated  exercise  gradually  and  directly  impresses 
on  it  an  appropriate  growth  and  form.1 

The  popularity  of  Kidd's  theories  may  be  explained 
by  the  fact  that  they  seemed  to  support  indirectly  the 
other  class  of  argument  which  argues  in  favour  of  the 
permanent  vitality  of  religion,  and  of  which  I  shall  now 
give  a  rapid  summary. 

It  is  said  that  religion,  having  left  all  other  fields 
of  social  activity,  is  more  than  ever  necessary  in  that 
of  morality ;  that  without  moral  principles  no  society 

1  For  a  more  detailed  examination  of  the  debate  between  Neo-Lamarck- 
ians  and  Neo-Darwinians,  vide  my  already  mentioned  work  :  Sur  la  trans- 
missibilitt  des  caracteres  acquis.  Hypothese  d'une  centro-c'pigdnese,  c.  v: 
La  question  de  la  trans,  des  car,  acq.  English  edition,  Chicago,  The  Open 
Court  Publishing  Company,  1911. 


182        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

can  persist,  and  that  religion  alone  is  capable  of  estab- 
lishing, inculcating,  and  strengthening  them.  Hence, 
according  to  these  writers,  arises  the  very  grave  danger 
that  society  is  at  present  running  if  it  does  not  check 
in  time  its  descent  to  irreligion. 

Here  we  must  distinguish.  Even  if  it  is  not  ex- 
plicitly confessed,  there  exists  a  great  apprehension  of 
the  daily  widening  and  imperious  movement  of  the 
claims  of  the  proletariat.  For  the  moment  it  is  limited 
to  what  is  called  social  legislation.  But  there  is  little 
doubt  that  some  day  or  other,  when  they  feel  that 
they  are  strong  enough  to  do  so,  the  workers  will 
attack  and  transform  from  top  to  bottom,  in  the  direc- 
tion they  deem  most  to  their  own  advantage,  even  the 
most  fundamental  of  social  institutions,  beginning  with 
the  rights  of  property.  This  movement  is  a  direct 
result  of  the  weakening  of  the  religious  sentiment  in  the 
working  classes,  a  sentiment  which,  in  conformity  with 
its  own  function,  always  predisposed  them  in  the  past 
to  bow  before  the  ruling  powers,  whatever  they  might 
be.  But  it  is  quite  clear  that  this  has  nothing  to  do 
with  the  question  of  morality.  It  is  rather  an  episode, 
perhaps  the  most  impressive  of  all,  in  the  secular  struggle 
between  classes,  which,  just  because  it  is  provoked  by 
the  most  exploited  and  the  most  oppressed  classes,  can 
end — very  probably  by  pacific  and  legal  methods — only 
in  a  more  equitable  social  transformation,  i.e.  in  one 
that  is  more  in  conformity  with  the  well-being  of  the 
majority. 

As  for  the  moral  question,  properly  so  called,  it  sub- 
divides into  two,  one  of  which  is  concerned  with  the 
establishment  of  what  are  called  "  moral  principles  " 


THE  RELIGIOUS  PHENOMENON          183 

as  well  as  their  evolution  towards  higher  and  higher 
forms,  while  the  other  refers  to  the  difficulty  of 
extending  and  strengthening  these  principles  in  the 
community. 

Now,  in  all  that  concerns  moral  evolution  one  fact 
stands  out  clearly,  and  Stuart  Mill  has  noted  this  in  the 
essay  in  which  he  clearly  shows  the  inutility  of  religion 
in  the  future  :  that  it  is  to  the  progress  of  ideas  and 
sentiments,  which  takes  place  in  society  outside  the 
religious  sentiment,  that  the  moral  improvement  of 
religions  is  due,  and  it  is  not  to  the  latter  that  we  owe 
the  former.  And  that  is  so,  because  the  collective  con- 
science has  always  been  more  ready  to  adapt  itself  to 
the  new  and  higher  forms  of  economic  evolution  which 
permitted  the  continuous  softening  and  refinement  of 
social  life.  But  religion,  from  its  very  nature  conser- 
vative in  everything,  has  always  opposed  the  most 
tenacious  resistance  to  every  change — even  of  the  ethics 
it  has  made  its  own.  This  is  precisely  why  Mill  is  of 
opinion  that  not  only  will  future  progress  be  possible 
without  religion,  but  that  the  disappearance  of  all 
religion  will  make  that  progress  easier.1 

On  the  other  hand,  as  far  as  the  propagation  and 
strengthening  of  moral  principles  are  concerned,  in  which 
in  every  age  social  circumstances  or  the  interest  of  the 
dominant  class  required  that  the  community  should 
share,  it  is  certain  that  this  was  one  of  the  capital 
missions  of  all  religions,  or  better  still  that,  as  we  have 
seen,  it  was  the  function  from  which  they  drew  their 
very  origin,  and  which  constituted  so  to  speak  their 

1  Vide  Stuart  Mill,  Three  Essays  on  Religion,  yd  edition,  London, 
Longmans,  Green  &  Co.,  1885,  second  essay  :  Utility  of  Religion,  p.  75. 


184        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

raison  d'etre.  But  in  this  as  in  every  other 
domain,  religion  is  seen  supplanted  gradually  by 
another  organ,  now  marvellously  developed  and 
much  more  efficient,  the  function  of  which  consists 
in  the  formation  and  manifestation  of  the  collective 
conscience. 

Built  up  by  every  means  of  communication  and 
transmission  of  thought,  by  the  most  varied  methods 
of  the  propagation  of  ideas,  by  all  of  what  we  call  the 
organs  of  public  opinion,  by  every  kind  of  meeting  and 
association  adapted  to  elicit  and  to  express  the  resultant 
of  many  individual  wills,  by  all  the  representative 
systems  in  every  department  of  social  activity,  this 
complex  apparatus  of  the  collective  conscience  now 
allows,  with  greater  and  greater  facility  and  perfection 
and  in  an  ever-increasing  number  of  cases,  of  concerted 
agreement  and  action  between  the  components  of  each 
social  group  or  sub-group,  and  thus  between  all  the 
members  of  society  in  general.  It  exercises  in  conse- 
quence an  ever-increasing  and  decisive  influence  in  all 
the  domains  of  social  activity,  and  therefore  also  in  the 
domain  of  morality. 

Thus  the  unanimous  acquiescence  of  society  in  those 
fixed  moral  principles  which  are  really  indispensable  or 
useful  to  the  existence  or  to  the  well-being,  not  only 
of  this  or  that  social  dominant  class,  but  of  society  as 
a  whole,  imposes  itself  upon  each  individual  with  an 
authority,  which  is  no  less  powerful  than  that  which 
was  at  one  time  exercised  by  religion  ;  and  the  praise 
and  blame,  the  esteem  and  contempt  of  public  opinion 
have  daily  acquired  greater  and  greater  importance,  so 
that  henceforth  it  becomes  for  the  large  majority 


THE  RELIGIOUS  PHENOMENON  185 

of  individuals   the    principal   mainspring   of    all   their 
actions.1 

In  every  way  we  are  certain  of  one  fact,  that  the  only 
organ  actually  brought  into  play  to  fight  immorality 
is  the  organ  of  the  collective  conscience  and  not  the 
religious  organ.  Associations  against  this  or  that  moral 
danger,  propaganda  founded  on  reliable  statistics  in 
connection  with  the  individual  and  social  injury  caused 
by  certain  vices,  electoral  and  press  campaigns  against 
scandals,  public  or  tacit  ostracism  of  this  or  that  more 
typical  representative  of  antisocial  morality — these 
are  the  only  methods  employed  by  society  of  to-day  to 
combat  antisocial  tendencies,  and  they  take  the  place 
of  the  celestial  thunderbolts  which  are  now  and  for- 
ever abandoned  as  useless. 

And  it  proceeds  in  the  same  way  when  it  is  a  question 
of  promulgating  or  affirming  directly  some  new  moral 
principle,  or  of  raising  the  collective  morality  in  some 
direction  or  other  which  seems  to  be  urgent :  educative 
systems  adapted  to  the  fashioning  and  orientation, 
durably  and  to  the  desired  end,  of  the  effective  faculties 
of  youth  ;  new  and  more  varied  ways  of  manifesting 
public  approval  in  such  a  form  that  it  will  be  more 
eagerly  desired  than  it  is  at  present  ;  ever  greater  care 
and  discernment  in  awarding  public  esteem,  so  that 
we  no  longer  see  moral  and  social  positions,  to  which 
that  esteem  alone  should  constitute  a  claim,  occupied 
by  men  unworthy  of  such  posts ;  and  finally,  and 
above  all,  a  high  appreciation  of  the  pride  which 
each  man  must  feel  in  his  own  "  social  value,"  and 
which,  where  the  weak  and  base  remain  confined 

1  Cf  Stuart  Mill,  op.  cit.,  s«cond  essay,  pp.  78-81,  84-7 


186        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

within  their  narrow  egoism,  impels,  on  the  contrary, 
a  man  to  spend  himself  for  others,  and  to  furnish 
the  greatest  possible  contribution  to  well-being  and 
social  utility.1 

Finally,  the  more  the  social  conscience  extends  and 
improves,  the  more  easily  it  discovers  and  lays  bare  the 
distress,  the  pain  and  the  injustice,  which  by  reason  of 
their  humble  origin  have  hitherto  remained  inarticulate. 
Thus  society  daily  becomes  more  sensitive,  its  emotivity 
becomes  refined,  its  sense  of  justice  is  broadened,  its 
moral  level  is  raised  to  a  height  at  all  times  greater 
than  that  of  which  religion  has  as  yet  given  us  even  a 
distant  glimpse. 

Society,  henceforth  guided  in  its  progress  by  prin- 
ciples of  a  purely  rational  order,  may  now  regard 
with  tranquil  serenity  the  definitive  and  not  inglorious 
decline  of  one  of  the  forms  of  its  activity  which 
responds  no  longer  to  its  needs,  but  to  which  none 
the  less  does  it  owe  its  origin,  its  development,  and  its 
present  civilization. 

But  if  religion  seems  thus  doomed  to  extinction  as  a 
social  organ  and  phenomenon,  we  cannot  judge  it  in  the 
same  way  if  we  consider  it  as  a  psychic  manifesta- 
tion and  individual  fact.  The  projection  of  our  own 
individual  finalism  outside  ourselves  into  the  whole 
universe,  the  last  philosophico-metaphysical  remnant  of 
the  grossly  animistic  conception  of  primitive  man,  the 
aspiration  for  the  triumph  of  good  over  evil,  the  still 
more  general  need  to  believe  that  everything  that 
has  value  for  us,  even  when  we  are  for  the  moment 

1  Cf.  Eug.  Rignano,  La  Morale  rationale,  "  Riv.  It.  di  Sociologie," 
January-February  1906,  pp.  97  et  seq. 


THE  RELIGIOUS   PHENOMENON          187 

deprived  of  it,  is  always  preserved  unimpaired  through 
all  the  changes  and  chances  of  the  real  world,  for 
a  later  realization  :  all  this  joined  to  the  sweetest, 
most  intimate,  and  ineffable  consolations  that  illu- 
sion born  of  ardent  desire  is  capable  of  giving,  such 
are  and  will  remain  for  ever  the  eternal  sources  of 
religious  feeling  for  all  minds  with  a  more  or  less 
mystical  tendency. 

This  mystical  £lite  can  thus  keep  alight  within  its 
heart,  and  transmit  in  the  ages  to  come  from  one  genera- 
tion to  another,  the  sacred  torch  of  religion,  as  long  as 
human  life  shall  endure.1 

1  Cf.  Luigi  Valli,  //  fondamento  psicologico  della  religione,  Roma,  Loe- 
scher,  1894,  c.  viii :  L'essenza  della  religione  ;  Harold  Hoffding,  Religions- 
philosophic,  Leipzig,  Reisland,  1901,  c.  iii  :  Psychologische  Religions- 
philosophie,  in  particular  Sect.  D  :  Der  Satz  von  der  Erhaltung  des  Werles  ; 
Stuart  Mill,  op.  cit.,  second  essay  :  Utility  of  Religion,  p.  120. 


VII 
HISTORIC    MATERIALISM 

IT  may  be  said  that  historic  Materialism  has  repre- 
sented and  still  represents  in  sociological  science  the 
analogous  movement  of  ideas  which  took  place  at  the 
beginning  of  the  last  century  in  biological  science, 
when  it  was  applied  to  unfold  the  relative  importance 
of  the  different  morphological  characteristics,  for  the 
purpose  of  a  natural  classification  of  species,  and  a 
wider  knowledge  of  the  vital  phenomena  of  the 
organism. 

And  just  as  that  movement  had  as  its  aim  to  show  how 
much  more  important  in  this  respect  is  the  inmost  and 
deepest  structure  of  the  organism  than  the  external 
and  more  obvious  conformation,  so  historic  Materialism 
came  into  existence  to  protest  against  the  excessive 
importance  always  awarded  by  historians  and  historical 
philosophers  to  certain  external  social  manifestations 
of  quite  a  secondary  order,  while  they  entirely  neglected 
other  more  obscure  and  humble  phenomena,  which,  at 
first  of  no  interest  at  all,  are,  on  the  contrary,  of  the 
greatest  value  in  the  study  of  the  complicated 
mechanism  and  evolution  of  the  whole  of  social  life. 

The  social  phenomenon  considered  by  historic  Mate- 

188 


HISTORIC  MATERIALISM  189 

rialism  as  the  most  important  of  all  is,  as  we  know,  the 
economic  phenomenon. 

But  historic  Materialism  did  rnot7  stop  there  !  At 
the  same  time  as  it  recognized  by  the  aid  of  a  powerful 
synthesis  the  supreme  importance  of  the  economic 
structure  or  organization  with  respect  to  all  other 
sociological  phenomena,  it  further  and  unwarrantably 
affirmed  the  irresistible  nature  of  the  course  of  economic 
phenomena,  which,  although  successively  fixing  and 
shaping  in  its  own  image  the  whole  social  superstruc- 
ture, built  up  of  legal,  political,  ethical  and  ideological 
phenomena,  was  in  its  turn  influenced  by  none  of 
these.  It  was  thus  impossible  for  it  ever  to  be  in- 
fluenced by  man's  will,  even  if  collective,  and  therefore 
not  even  by  law,  which  is  the  most  direct  manifesta- 
tion of  that  collective  will. 

Thus  historic  Materialism  came  to  assert  a  merely 
one-sided  rather  than  a  completely  reciprocal  inter- 
dependence of  the  different  social  phenomena,  and  gave 
to  the  evolution  of  society  a  rigidly  fatalistic  colouring. 
Besides,  the  economic  structure  itself,  on  which  would 
depend  the  whole  social  superstructure,  would  in  its 
turn  be  fixed  at  each  stage  of  its  evolution  by  the 
successive  modes  of  being  of  a  supreme  factor  which, 
compelled  by  its  very  nature  to  suffer  continual 
transformation,  would  thus  inevitably  induce  and 
give  direction  to  the  whole  of  social  and  economic 
evolution. 

To  Marx  this  supreme  factor  would  be  the  instrument 
of  production  in  the  wide  sense  of  the  word,  or  what 
he  calls  by  the  name  of  "  material  productive  forces." 
Its  action  would  be  notable  especially  in  the  determina- 


190       ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

tion  of  the  transition  from  domestic  to  capitalistic 
economy  and  from  the  regime  of  small  industry  to  the 
present  regime  of  the  factory  system.  To  others  this 
primordial  factor  would  be  something  quite  different. 
Thus  Loria  finds  it  in  the  density  of  population,  the 
continual  increase  of  which  would  have  determined  by 
the  past  the  four  successive  fundamental  states — collec- 
tive, slave-holding,  servile,  and  wage-earning — and  which 
would  still  continue  to  determine  all  the  secondary 
manifestations  of  the  latter.  To  other  experts  the  first 
impulse  would  again  be  something  else.  But  in  all 
alike  the  fundamental  thesis  remains  unaltered,  that 
the  economic  structure  is  self-evolved  by  its  own  intrinsic 
force,  modifying  gradually  in  a  corresponding  manner 
the  whole  social  superstructure,  without  on  its  side  in 
any  way  being  influenced  by  this  superstructure,  and 
not  even  by  the  law  which  is  its  most  important 
manifestation. 

It  cannot  be  denied  that  a  whole  series  of  facts,  well 
established  by  evidence,  give  a  strong  appearance  of 
truth  to  this  way  of  looking  at  things.  Thus  we  are 
familiar  with  the  impotence  of  many  laws  in  the  pre- 
sence of  certain  economic  phenomena  which  they  tend 
either  to  further  or  to  check.  As  an  example  it  will  be 
sufficient  to  recall  the  mercantile  laws  of  the  seventeenth 
and  eighteenth  centuries,  which  aimed  at  making  the 
balance  of  commerce  as  favourable  as  possible  to  the 
continual  increase  of  the  mass  of  precious  metals  in 
the  country,  and  in  our  own  time,  the  anti-trust  laws 
of  the  United  States.  On  the  other  hand,  a  number  of 
these  laws,  quite  powerless  at  the  outset  to  struggle 
against  given  economic  phenomena,  have  seen  in  the 


HISTORIC  MATERIALISM  191 

long  run  their  field  of  application  reduced  little  by 
little  to  nothing,  because  of  the  transformations  effected 
by  economic  phenomena  quite  outside  their  influence. 
Such  were  the  laws  against  usury  in  the  Middle  Ages, 
which,  powerless  at  first  to  cope  with  the  high  rate  of 
interest,  continued  in  many  cases  to  subsist  even  when 
the  natural  drop  of  the  rate  of  profit,  and  therefore  of  the 
interest  of  money  itself,  made  them  completely  useless. 
Such  laws  continuing  to  subsist  for  some  time  at  least, 
although  no  longer  useful — becoming  obsolete  as  the 
English  say — and  the  existence  thereby  revealed  of  a 
kind  of  force  of  inertia  in  law,  seem  to  indicate  that 
legal  phenomena,  far  from  outstripping  economic 
phenomena,  which  they  should  modify,  are,  on  the 
contrary,  themselves  dragged  along  at  the  heels  of 
the  latter,  and  have  no  choice  but  to  follow. 

The  most  important  transformations  to  which  an 
economic  regime  may  be  exposed  may  sometimes  also 
be  produced  in  the  course  of  the  natural  evolution  of 
the  economic  process,  without  law  entering  into  the 
matter  at  all.  This  is  demonstrated  by  all  those  cases 
in  which  the  latter  exists  side  by  side  with,  and,  so 
to  say,  is  impassable  to,  the  economic  evolution,  i.e. 
without  its  fundamental  outlines  being  subjected,  for 
any  length  of  time  at  least,  to  any  modification.  Thus 
the  above-mentioned  gradual  transformation  of  the 
regime  of  small  industry  into  the  factory  system  which 
has,  may  I  say,  completely  changed  the  aspect  of  the 
capitalistic  regime,  and  which  Marx  has  so  excellently 
described  in  his  magnum  opus,  was  almost  entirely 
accomplished  while  the  law  of  property  remained 
unchanged  in  its  fundamental  conformation,  and  even 


192       ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

before  the  other  legal  institutions  more  especially  con- 
cerned with  this  side  of  the  economic  process  perceived 
the  change  which  had  supervened. 

The  most  profound  social  transformations  themselves 
may  be  produced  unknown  to  law.  Thus  it  was  that 
during  the  decline  of  the  Roman  Empire  the  increasing 
rarity  and  therefore  the  increasing  price  of  slaves  on  the 
one  hand,  and  on  the  other  the  progressive  impoverish- 
ment of  a  large  portion  of  the  ever  more  numerous  and 
more  necessitous  parasitic  class,  which  created  a  pro- 
letariat of  free  men  and  of  freedmen,  spontaneously 
gave  rise  to  the  gradual  replacing  of  slavery  by  servile 
labour  in  agriculture,  and  by  wage-earning  labour  in 
the  arts  and  trades,  both  being  economically  more 
convenient. 

But  do  these,  and  other  similar  facts  which  might 
be  multiplied  at  leisure,  suffice  to  prove  the  absolute 
independence  and  immutability  of  economic  phenomena 
in  the  presence  of  other  social  facts,  and  especially  the 
impossibility  of  ever  being  modified  by  the  collective 
human  will,  whatever  may  be  the  institutions  in  which 
that  collective  will  is  manifested  ?  Or  do  they  not 
rather  merely  go  to  show  that  because  of  the  intrinsic 
difference  in  the  modes  of  action  of  these  two  most 
fundamental  social  factors,  the  economic  and  the  legal, 
their  reciprocal  influences  and  interferences  are  con- 
nected with  certain  well-determined  conditions  for 
which  we  must  look  ? 

A  solemn  denial,  the  more  effective  because  it  has 
been  made  in  our  own  days,  has  already  been  given  to 
this  affirmation  of  the  irresistible  and  inevitable  nature 
of  the  social  evolution  by  the  repeated  successes  of  the 


HISTORIC  MATERIALISM  195 

associations  created  by  the  working  classes  in  self- 
defence,  of  which  the  first  and  the  most  celebrated 
were  the  English  trade  unions,  in  their  struggle  for  the 
increase  of  wages.  While  the  natural  course  of  the 
economic  process  must  have  led  to  a  progressive  im- 
poverishment and  a  degradation  of  the  working  classes, 
the  collective  action  of  the  latter  ultimately  modified 
it  to  its  advantage. 

If  conscious  collective  action  by  itself  alone,  even 
before  assuming  the  character  of  a  real  legal  pheno- 
menon, thus  shows  itself  capable  of  changing  in  one 
direction  rather  than  in  another  the  course  of  economic 
phenomena,  must  it  not  be  d/ priori  presumed  that  it 
is  all  the  more  capable  of  it,  at  least  in  certain  cases, 
when  it  is  manifested  and  consolidated  in  law  in  general, 
which  prolongs  the  period  of  its  efficacy,  and  particu- 
larly in  the  law  of  property  which  encircles  and  dams 
in  the  whole  course  of  economic  phenomena  ?  Now 
there  is  more  than  enough  confirmation  &  posteriori 
of  this  presumption. 

Let  us  compare,  for  instance,  the  two  regimes  of  the 
ownership  of  land  in  France  and  England.  In  the 
latter,  the  Norman  usurpers  and  their  descendants, 
having  become  by  conquest  the  proprietors  of  the  whole 
of  the  soil,  and  being  small  in  number  compared  to  the 
rest  of  the  population,  aimed  at  preserving  their  mono- 
poly by  instituting,  as  was  done  everywhere  else  at  the 
time,  the  entailed  estate  and  the  trust,  and  these  resulted 
in  the  maintenance  of  latifundia,  or  the  system  of 
very  large  landed  property.  At  an  interval  of  several 
centuries,  in  France,  the  expropriation  of  the  property 
of  the  nobility  and  the  clergy  by  the  middle  classes  of 

13 


194       ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

the  Revolution,  the  expropriating  class  being  in  this 
case  a  much  larger  fraction  of  the  whole  population, 
ended,  on  the  contrary,  in  a  breaking  up  of  the  land, 
which  was  favoured  still  more  by  the  special  testamen- 
tary and  legacy  laws  that  the  middle  classes  themselves 
hastened  to  pass  to  avoid  the  danger  of  seeing  the  gradual 
reappearance  of  the  system  of  large  estates.  It  is  thus 
that  the  difference  between  the  two  systems  of  property, 
between  the  two  legal  systems  blocking  and  guiding  the 
course  of  the  rural  economic  phenomena,  led  to  quite 
different  economic  manifestations  and  evolutions  :  in 
the  one  case,  immense  territorial  properties,  absentee- 
ism, pasturage  to  the  detriment  of  cereals,  the  depopu- 
lation of  the  land,  evictions  of  whole  rural  populations, 
and  great  inequality  in  the  distribution  of  wealth  ;  on 
the  other,  an  over-division  of  the  soil,  the  proprietor 
cultivating  his  own  land,  intensive  agriculture,  the 
spirit  of  thrift  general  and  intense,  and  a  greater 
equality  in  distribution. 

But  we  must  be  careful  not  to  conclude  that  in  these 
cases  the  regime  of  property  reflects  and  follows  the 
economic  process  ;  for  it  is,  on  the  contrary,  evident 
that  it  precedes  and  determines  it. 

We  could  mention  a  great  number  of  similar  instances 
to  prove  that  the  law  effectively  possesses  in  given 
conditions  a  determinative  efficacy  in  economic  pheno- 
mena ;  but  this  is  quite  unnecessary,  because  historic 
Materialism,  by  its  second  fundamental  thesis,  has 
itself  contributed  a  very  strong  and  decisive  argument 
against  its  first  thesis,  represented  by  the  so-called 
"  inevitable "  course  of  the  economic  process.  This 
second  thesis  is  true,  and  historic  Materialism  has 


HISTORIC  MATERIALISM  195 

supported  it  by  a  very  large  number  of  facts,  but  it 
absolutely  contradicts  the  former  :  I  refer  to  the  struggle 
between  class  and  class. 

By  the  sociological  law  of  this  struggle  historic  Mate- 
rialism has,  in  fact,  affirmed  that  by  far  the  largest 
number  of  the  most  striking  social  facts  which  con- 
stitute the  texture  of  history  are  but  the  more  or  less 
direct  or  indirect  results  and  manifestations  of  the 
incessant  struggle  in  every  society  between  the  dif- 
ferent classes,  each  being  drawn  into  it  by  its  own 
particular  economic  motive.  As  Marx  and  Engels 
wrote  in  the  celebrated  Manifesto  of  the  Communist 
Party,  "  the  history  of  society  so  far  has  been  the 
history  of  the  struggle  between  class  and  class." 

By  "  struggle,"  we  must  merely  understand  in  this 
case  the  tendency  of  each  conscious  social  group,  econo- 
mically homogeneous,  to  increase  its  economic  advan- 
tages at  the  expense  of  all  the  other  groups.  '  The 
egoism  of  individuals,"  writes  Spencer  in  his  Study  of 
Sociology,  "  leads  to  an  egoism  of  the  class  they  form  ; 
and  besides  the  separate  efforts,  generates  a  joint  effort 
to  get  an  undue  share  of  the  aggregate  proceeds  of  social 
activity.  The  aggressive  tendencies  thus  developed 
in  each  class  have  to  be  balanced  by  like  aggressive 
tendencies  in  other  classes." 

Looked  at  in  this  way,  the  class  struggle  in  the  midst 
of  the  social  organism  corresponds  exactly  to  the  struggle 
of  the  different  parts,  organs,  tissues,  and  cells,  revealed 
by  Wilhelm  Roux,  which  goes  on  continually  in  every 
organism.  And  so  this  class  struggle  appears  only  as 
one  of  the  numerous  manifestations  and  consequences 
of  that  universal  and  irresistible  tendency  of  life  towards 


196        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

self-expansion,  the  primordial  and  fundamental  stimulus 
of  the  whole  of  organic  evolution  both  biological  and 
sociological. 

But  it  is  not  enough  to  say  that  this  struggle  between 
classes  exists.  We  must  study  and  know  the  different 
ways  in  which  it  comes  to  be  manifested,  either  directly 
in  the  economic  field,  or  indirectly  in  all  the  other  social 
fields,  and  it  will  be  equally  necessary  to  follow  step 
by  step  the  continual  changes  in  the  respective  efficacy 
or  "  weight  "  of  each  of  these  classes  in  so  far  as  they 
are  sociological  factors,  and  the  effects  produced  in 
turn  by  these  changes — changes  during  the  periods  of 
so-called  revolutions,  which  eventually  reach  their 
culminating  point  in  the  alternate  succession  of  these 
classes  to  power.  It  is  by  proceeding  in  this  way  that 
we  can  really  succeed  in  throwing  a  dazzling  light 
either  on  the  changes  which  supervene  in  the  political 
and  legal  constitution  of  the  different  States,  and  in 
all  the  other  social  internal  manifestations  in  general, 
ethical  and  ideological  included,  or  on  the  external 
acts  themselves  of  society,  in  so  far  as  the  latter  forms 
a  distinct  unit,  such  as  wars,  treaties  of  peace,  dismem- 
berment or  fusion  of  States,  imperialism,  and  the  like. 

Social  phenomena  which  appeared  to  be  utterly 
unlike  and  to  be  due  to  the  most  different  causes  have 
thus  been  reduced  to  a  single  cause,  assimilated  to 
each  other,  and  therefore  explained  in  the  real  sense  of 
the  word  as  used  by  positive  philosophy.  The  search 
for  the  economic  motive  of  this  or  that  social  class  as 
the  stimulus  or  factor  of  historic  events  which  at  first 
sight  might  seem  to  be  produced  by  causes  of  quite  a 
different  kind,  or  of  which  the  cause  was  not  understood 


HISTORIC  MATERIALISM  197 

at  all,  and  the  search  for  the  causes,  in  most  cases 
economic,  altering  incessantly  the  respective  "  weights  " 
of  the  different  social  classes,  have  thus  come  to  be 
the  corner  stone  of  a  whole  series  of  historical  recon- 
structions upon  a  scientific  basis. 

The  most  typical  of  the  historical  facts  upon  which 
the  founders  of  historic  Materialism  more  especially 
endeavour  to  support  and  sustain  their  doctrine  of  this 
struggle  of  classes  are  too  well  known  for  it  to  be  worth 
while  to  dwell  upon  them  here.  In  the  Crusades,  for 
instance,  they  point  to  the  economic  interest  which  the 
dominant  classes  of  the  flourishing  Italian  republics, 
of  Venice  in  particular,  had  in  making  war  against  the 
Turk  to  secure  for  themselves  the  rich  markets  of  the 
East.  The  reformation  associated  with  the  name  of 
Luther  appears  due,  not  so  much  to  the  desire  to  get 
rid  of  dogma,  as  to  avoid  the  heavy  taxes  levied  by 
Rome  in  various  ways,  including  the  sale  of  indul- 
gences. The  diffusion  of  Christianity  is  shown  in  its 
origin  to  be  a  real  movement  of  proletarian  demand. 
The  removal  of  the  capital  from  Rome  to  Byzantium 
and  the  elevation  of  Christianity  to  the  rank  of  the 
official  religion  are  attributed  by  Renan  himself  to  the 
displacement  of  the  centre  of  gravity  of  the  empire 
caused  by  the  preponderating  "  weight  "  acquired  by 
the  wealthy  commercial  classes  of  the  East,  the 
bourgeoisie  of  those  days,  who  clung  to  the  Christian 
proletariat  to  counterbalance  and  to  crush  the  old 
Roman  parasitic  aristocracy.  The  great  French  Revolu- 
tion at  once  appeared  to  all  as  the  effect  of  the  sudden 
rupture  of  an  equilibrium  which  had  long  been  unstable, 
in  consequence  of  the  preponderance  the  capitalist 


198       ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

middle  classes  had  acquired  over  the  landed  nobility. 
And  even  the  numerous  successive  political  crises  in 
France,  which  as  mere  ideologies  remain  an  inexplicable 
mystery — Bonapartist,  Legitimist,  Orleanist,  Repub- 
lican, Plebiscitist,  and  so  on — are,  on  the  contrary, 
at  once  understood  if  we  look  at  them  in  the  light  of  the 
multiple  economic  interests  in  play,  which  under  these 
names  fight  for  the  triumph  of  one  over  the  other  : 
interests  of  the  actual  holders  of  lands  already  national- 
ized and  of  the  former  expropriated  proprietors,  of 
the  great  landed  property  partly  restored  under  the 
Bourbons,  and  of  the  manufactures  and  high  finance 
represented  by  the  House  of  Orleans,  of  the  small 
trades  and  businesses  to  which  with  the  aid  of  the 
working  classes  we  owe  the  Revolution  of  1848  and 
the  peasant  proprietors  on  whom  Napoleon  III  relied 
— all  these  political  transformations  thus  reduce  in 
turn  to  one  and  the  same  fundamental  cause,  to  the 
struggle  between  the  different  economic  classes,  as 
Marx  himself  has  shown  us  in  the  suggestive  pages 
in  which  he  applies  and  illustrates  his  doctrine. 

Some  writers,  like  Vilfredo  Pareto  in  his  Systemes 
socialistes,  see  in  the  class  struggle  nothing  but  a  struggle 
of  Elites,  each  trying  to  supplant  the  other.  But  we 
must  distinguish  between  a  struggle  of  Elites  each  rely- 
ing on  its  own  social  class,  and  a  struggle  of  elites  within 
one  and  the  same  social  class.  In  the  first  case  the 
6lite  represents  only  the  necessary  rallying  centre  for 
the  dispersed  members  of  the  class,  the  organ  which 
synthetizes  and  co-ordinates  the  collective  will,  which 
thus  comes  to  be  disengaged  less  confusedly  from  the 
individual  wills.  The  struggle  of  Elites  is  in  this  case 


HISTORIC  MATERIALISM  199 

only  the  superficial  aspect  under  which  is  hidden  the 
far  deeper  and  far  more  fundamental  phenomenon  of 
the  struggle  of  classes.  In  the  second  case,  on  the 
contrary,  in  which  the  elites  all  look  for  support  from 
the  same  social  class,  and  each  tries  to  eject  the 
other  from  power,  this  fact  represents  but  a  later 
and  secondary  variation  of  the  primary  and  principal 
phenomenon.  The  preponderance  of  one  elite  rather 
than  another  is  to  the  fact  of  the  struggle  maintained 
by  this  class  against  its  antagonists  what  the  fact  of 
this  or  that  accidental  harmonic  note  accompanying 
the  fundamental  note  is  to  the  vibration  of  the  latter. 
The  different  elites  who  succeed  one  another  only 
change,  so  to  speak,  the  timbre  of  the  real  and  typical 
struggle  which  the  class  as  a  whole  persists  in  carrying 
on  without  essential  variations.  Thus  it  was  that  the 
succession  of  the  different  elites  within  the  revo- 
lutionary bourgeoisie  class  during  the  most  critical 
period  of  the  great  French  Revolution,  and  the 
quarrels  of  the  different  Elites  in  the  socialist  party 
of  to-day,  do  not  sensibly  alter  the  substance  of  the 
principal  fact,  which,  under  this  sorry  disguise,  is 
all  the  while  an  imposing  historic  phenomenon  of 
fundamental  importance. 

On  the  other  hand,  by  this  assertion  that  there  is  a 
struggle  of  classes  in  which  each  is  guided  by  some 
economic  motive,  historic  Materialism  has  not  the 
slightest  intention  of  denying  the  existence  of  even  the 
noblest  individual  aspirations,  free  from  any  material 
interest,  however  slight ;  it  affirms  only  that  they 
cannot  influence  the  action  of  a  conscious  collectivity 
with  homogeneous  economic  interests,  in  the  moral 


200        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

attitude  of  which  is  reflected  only  the  average  of  the 
commonest  ethical  characteristics  of  all  its  members. 

Historic  Materialism  no  longer  excludes  certain 
collective  ideal  aspirations,  nor  does  it  deny  their  effect 
on  the  masses.  But  in  cases  of  this  kind  we  have  to 
do  with  "  social  instincts,"  such  as  religious  faith,  racial 
hatred,  and  the  like,  i.e.  collective  tendencies  with 
stereotyped  modes  of  reaction,  impulsive,  and  unthink- 
ing, in  fact  quite  like  the  instincts  or  reflex  movements 
of  the  animal  organism.  And  the  "  conscious  "  classes, 
i.e.  those  whose  members,  on  the  contrary,  have  the 
faculty  of  acting  in  concert  under  the  influence  of 
reason,  then  utilize  these  collective  instincts  for  their 
economic  motives.  Thus  when  Peter  the  Hermit 
incited  the  crowds  to  deliver  the  Holy  Sepulchre, 
neither  Peter  nor  the  crowds  were  acting  under  the 
influence  of  any  economic  motive  ;  but  the  conscious 
classes  knew  very  well  how  to  turn  to  their  economic 
advantage  this  valuable  unconscious  force. 

There  are  some  who  refuse  to  admit  that  every  con- 
scious class  does  act  always  and  exclusively  to  its  own 
advantage,  because  they  see  the  dominant  classes  some- 
times and  even  often  take  measures  or  make  laws  which 
turn  to  their  own  detriment  and  are  to  the  advantage 
of  the  dominated  classes.  Such,  for  instance,  is  all  the 
so-called  social  legislation  of  the  present  day  in  favour 
of  the  working  classes.  But  in  holding  this  view  they 
forget  that  a  class,  however  remote  it  may  be  from 
power,  may  always  in  spite  of  that  have  even  a  con- 
siderable "  weight,"  and  that  in  one  way  or  other  it 
may  always  make  that  weight  prevail.  It  is  well 
known  that  even  in  absolute  regimes,  the  class  in  power, 


HISTORIC  MATERIALISM  201 

court  or  nobility,  is  always  forced  to  rely  on  one  or  other 
of  the  other  social  classes  which,  in  its  political  intuition, 
it  judges  to  be  the  most  powerful.  Now  this  counts 
for  much  more  in  these  days  of  representative  govern- 
ment. Thus  Loriahas  very  well  shown  that  the  struggle 
between  the  two  English  political  parties,  Conservative 
and  Liberal,  the  one  representing  the  interests  of 
landed  property  and  the  other  those  of  the  industries, 
led  to  a  whole  series  of  legislative  acts  and  measures 
in  favour  of  the  working  classes,  merely  because  each 
of  the  two  parties  was  forced  to  make  one  concession 
after  another  in  order  to  buy  their  support. 

It  is  just  because  any  class  in  power  finds  it  must 
rely  on  other  classes,  i.e.  must  increase  its  own  "weight" 
by  their  "  weight,"  that  the  necessity  arises  of  dressing 
up  its  economic  motive  in  idealistic  guise,  so  as  to  repre- 
sent its  plans  of  social  action  as  of  the  most  general 
possible  interest. 

Moreover,  it  is  only  by  a  quite  natural  and  spontaneous 
tendency,  and  often  in  quite  good  faith,  that  the  mem- 
bers of  one  given  economic  class  are  driven  to  take  the 
particular  interests  of  their  class  to  be  identical  with 
the  interests  of  society  in  general,  and  consequently 
to  consider  the  social  institutions  or  sanctions  which 
favour  or  protect  their  particular  interests  as  so  many 
"  natural  rights  "  or  "  supreme  principles  of  justice." 
It  is  possible  and  easy  for  each  of  us  to  investigate  the 
subject  by  asking  in  succession  several  persons,  belong- 
ing to  the  most  different  classes,  any  social  question 
whatever  of  general  application.  Each  of  them,  while 
developing  considerations  of  general  utility  alone,  will 
reach  a  solution  agreeable  to  the  interests  of  his  own 


202        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

class.  Thus,  for  instance,  as  concerns  the  relation 
between  the  individual  and  the  State,  the  Manchester 
formula  of  laissez-faire,  revived  in  Spencer's  philoso- 
phico-legal  theory  of  the  individual  against  the  State, 
no  less  than  the  opposite  doctrine  of  State  interven- 
tion by  means  of  normative  and  controlling  social 
legislation,  will  each  find  its  most  convinced  sup- 
porters in  the  classes  to  the  economic  interest  of  which 
they  respectively  answer. 

And  so  by  the  appearance  on  the  political  scene  of 
new  classes  which  give  new  directions  to  social  action, 
and  by  the  continual  change  of  values  or  relative  social 
"  weights  "  of  the  different  classes,  we  are  very  often 
able  to  explain  the  successive  rise  and  fall  of  certain 
economic,  legal,  ethical,  and  philosophical  doctrines  ; 
a  case  in  point  is  that  of  the  Manchester  school,  now  so 
discredited  and  yet  so  flourishing  at  the  beginning  of 
the  past  century. 

On  the  other  hand,  when  we  see  a  people,  such  as  the 
English  of  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries, 
professing  a  religion  eminently  humanitarian,  and  yet 
introducing  slavery  into  their  American  colonies,  and 
there  maintaining  it,  as  soon  as  the  economic  advan- 
tage of  the  capitalist  class  required  it,  we  are  bound 
to  recognize  how  illusory  it  is  to  count  on  collective 
idealities  as  effective  social  forces ;  it  also  shows 
what  a  mistake  it  would  be  to  attribute  the  disap- 
pearance of  slavery  in  the  ancient  Roman  world  to 
the  Christian  ideality  of  the  human  brotherhood. 

It  is  only  when  the  economic  interests  of  the  socially 
predominant  classes  happen  to  coincide  with  one  of 
these  collective  idealities,  always  more  or  less  present 


HISTORIC  MATERIALISM  203 

or  latent  in  human  beings,  that  this  ideality,  no  longer 
attacked  but  encouraged  by  those  who  are  interested, 
is  developed,  and  expands  and  stirs  the  world,  so  that 
it  appears  to  be  itself  the  cause  of  the  movement.  It 
is  the  story  of  the  fly  on  the  wheel  over  again.  Thus 
the  humanitarian  ideal  of  a  universal  peace,  which  in 
all  times  has  given  rise  to  the  highest  aspirations  of  the 
best  minds,  has  begun  effectively  to  take  root  only  in 
our  own  days  ;  because  now  for  the  first  time  the 
greater  importance  of  international  economic  exchanges 
and  relations  in  general  has  caused  every  economic 
crisis  in  one  .economically  advanced  country  to  be  felt 
at  once  in  all  the  rest ;  so  that  the  capitalist  class  in 
every  State  feels  itself  menaced  in  its  most  vital  interests 
by  every  war  which  may  contingently  break  out 
between  civilized  nations,  even  if  its  own  country 
should  not  take  direct  part  in  it.  When,  however, 
owing  to  the  particular  conditions  of  the  economic 
development  of  a  country,  the  economic  interests  of 
its  dominant  capitalist  classes,  together  with  its  mili- 
tary power,  are  such  as  to  hope  to  profit  by  a  war, 
the  humanitarian  ideal  which  appeared  so  efficacious 
becomes  quite  powerless,  as  we  have  learned  from  the 
present  terrible  war  upon  which  Germany  has  not 
hesitated  to  embark  for  merely  economic  motives. 

To  sum  up  what  I  have  now  rapidly  and  incom- 
pletely developed  on  the  subject  of  the  action  that  the 
different  classes  in  conflict  may  take  to  produce  the 
most  fundamental  facts  of  history  and  to  determine 
the  direction  of  the  whole  of  social  evolution  in  general, 
the  fundamental  contradiction  I  have  indicated  above, 
into  which  the  doctrine  of  historic  Materialism  has 


204        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

fallen,  is  made  perfectly  clear  to  our  minds.  Historic 
Materialism,  in  fact,  announces  on  the  one  hand  that 
the  struggle  between  classes  is  the  supreme  law  of  his- 
tory, and  that  it  is  this  struggle  which  makes  history  ; 
on  the  other,  it  denies  that  the  action  of  classes  can  ever 
have,  either  by  direct  action  on  economic  phenomena 
themselves  or  by  suitable  modifications  in  the  law  of 
property  and  in  legal  institutions  in  general,  any  deter- 
mining effect  on  the  course  of  the  economic  process, 
which  must  follow  undisturbed  its  independent  and 
inevitable  evolution. 

Can  a  greater  contradiction  be  imagined  ?  Either 
the  struggle  between  the  different  classes,  each  tending 
to  secure  for  itself  the  greatest  economic  advantage, 
exists,  and  it  follows  that  economic  phenomena  may  be 
modified  in  one  direction  or  another  according  as  this 
or  that  class  becomes  preponderant ;  or,  the  economic 
process,  as  immutable  as  the  orbits  of  the  planets  in  the 
heavens,  follows  its  inevitable  course  apart  from  any 
human  influence  whatever,  and  then  the  struggle  between 
classes,  the  sole  object  of  which  is  to  change  the  economic 
process,  can  no  longer  exist  for  the  want  of  anything 
to  fight  about.  Thus  certain  changes  in  the  course 
of  the  sun  would  certainly  offer  great  economic  advan- 
tages to  northern  races,  and  disadvantages  to  the  people 
of  the  South,  but  I  think  it  would  be  idle  to  seek  in 
the  archives  of  history  for  any  racial  or  class  struggle 
having  as  its  object  the  turning  of  the  sun  aside  from 
its  eternal  path. 

This  fundamental  error  of  Marxism  has  ended  in 
serious  damage  to  the  socialist  movement.  The 
prediction  of  the  near  and  necessary  approach  of 


HISTORIC  MATERIALISM  205 

the  collectivist  regime,  in  which  none  is  exploited  and 
none  is  exploiter,  was  no  doubt  at  first  of  considerable 
value  in  inspiring  and  diffusing  in  the  masses  the  social- 
istic gospel  and  creed,  just  as  faith  in  the  near  approach 
of  the  millennium  contributed  to  the  diffusion  of  Chris- 
tianity. But  in  the  end  it  became  itself,  on  the  contrary, 
the  principal  cause  of  the  present  profound  crisis  in  the 
socialist  party  in  every  country,  for  it  had  no  other 
proposal  to  make  than  ...  to  await  the.  inevitable 
maturity  of  the  collectivist  regime. 

If,  on  the  contrary,  we  admit  the  possibility  that  the 
economic  process  may  raise  to  the  rank  of  a  preponder- 
ating or  co-determining  sociological  factor  a  new  class, 
whose  interest  is,  for  instance,  to  introduce  into  the 
legal  institution  of  property  certain  changes  which 
would  assure  it  new  and  greater  economic  advantages, 
and  that  these  changes  when  once  introduced  would 
modify  the  economic  process  in  the  desired  and  fore- 
seen direction,  then  this  will  be  the  action  of  this  con- 
scious class,  efficaciously  exercised  by  the  intermediary 
of  suitable  modifications  of  the  law  of  property,  and  not 
at  all  a  process  of  internal  evolution,  which  will  consti- 
tute the  effective  cause  of  the  change  supervening  in 
the  course  of  economic  phenomena.  Even  if  we  admit, 
what  is  not  always  the  case,  that  the  growth  of  the  power 
of  this  new  class  is  exclusively  the  result  of  the  manner 
in  which  the  economic  process  previously  developed, 
this  would  not  in  any  way  prevent  the  work  of  that 
class,  as  soon  as  it  became  the  prepondering  factor, 
from  being  a  sociological  factor  effective  for  itself,  of 
a  nature  quite  different  from  that  of  the  real  economic 
phenomenon. 


206        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

Once  this  startling  contradiction  of  historic  Mate- 
rialism has  been  rejected,  which  has  seriously  and  deeply 
invalidated  every  scientific  application  of  this  doctrine 
that  even  its  best  exponents  have  made,  then  this 
law  of  the  struggle  of  class  against  class  is  effectively 
shown  to  be  one  of  the  finest  conquests  of  sociological 
science,  because,  with  the  exception  of  a  few  economic 
laws  properly  so  called,  it  is  the  first  which  has  made 
possible  for  sociology  that  prevision  which  is  the  supreme 
end  of  all  science  and  the  measure  of  the  degree  of 
perfection  to  which  it  has  attained.1 

In  many  cases  it  will,  in  fact,  be  sufficient  to  examine 
which  social  classes  would  see  their  interests  favoured 
and  which  would  find  theirs  prejudiced  by  a  given  con- 
tingent social  action,  such  as  a  war,  a  modification  in 
the  rights  of  property,  a  law,  or  other  measure,  and  to 
ascertain  which  of  the  two  groups  of  classes  is  pre- 
ponderating, i.e.  which  has  the  most  "  weight  "  as  a 
sociological  factor,  to  be  able  to  see  at  once  and  with 
the  utmost  certainty  if  the  event  will  or  will  not 
take  place. 

But  to  give  this  sociological  law  of  class  struggle  an 
ever-increasing  power  of  prevision,  it  must  be  com- 
pleted. I  have  tried  to  do  this  in  another  volume,  by 
looking  first  of  all  for  the  laws  which  govern  the  varia- 
tions of  the  respective  "  weights  "  of  the  different  social 
classes,  and  by  then  studying  the  laws  which  regulate 
the  different  possible  modes  of  action  of  these  classes, 
and  the  different  efficiency  of  each  of  these  possible 

1  See  what  I  have  already  said  on  this  subject  in  my  essay  :  La  sociologie 
dans  le  cours  de  philosophic  positive  d'Auguste  Comte,  Paris,  Giard  et 
Briere,  1902,  pp.  41  et  seq. ;  Italian  edition,  Palermo,  Sandron,  1904, 
pp.  116  et  seq. 


HISTORIC  MATERIALISM  307 

modes  of  action,  which  each  class  can  follow  when  it 
has  gained  a  markedly  preponderating  "  weight,"  or 
acquired  a  new  force  capable  of  counterbalancing,  in 
part  at  least,  those  of  the  other  classes. 

Among  the  elements  which  compete  in  determining 
the  social  "  weight  "  of  any  particular  group  of  in- 
dividuals, the  degree  of  perfection  of  the  collective 
conscience  of  the  group,  its  economic  power,  and  the 
number  of  its  components  have  appeared  to  be  the 
most  important  of  all.  It  must  be  noted,  however, 
that  the  degree  of  perfection  of  the  collective  conscience 
— with  which  is  connected  the  more  or  less  closely  har- 
monious action  and  the  larger  or  smaller  number  of 
circumstances  in  which  the  group  can  work  in  concert 
— depends  in  its  turn  on  other  elements  which  are 
not  all  of  an  economic  nature,  elements  which  com- 
plicate considerably  the  phenomenon,  and  on  which  it 
would  here  be  useless  to  dwell.1 

As  for  the  different  modes  of  action  possible  to  each 
class,  they  vary  according  to  the  "  weight  "  it  has 
relatively  to  the  others.  Thus  it  is  only  when  it  is  not 
yet  possible  for  it  to  direct  its  modifying  action  on 
legal  phenomena  that  it  turns  directly  to  economic 
phenomena.  This  has  happened,  as  we  have  seen, 
in  the  case  of  trade  unions,  and  in  general  of  all 
working-class  organizations  of  resistance,  from  the  first 
awakening  of  a  collective  conscience  in  the  classes  of 
workers.  But  it  is  only  as  a  makeshift  that  any  col- 

1  Cf.  Eugenic  Rignano,  Di  un  socialismo  in  accordo  colla  dottrina 
economica  liberate,  Torino,  Bocca,  1901  ;  French  edition  :  Un  socialisme  en 
harmonic  avec  la  doctrine  economique  liberate,  Paris,  Giard  et  Briere,  1904  » 
last  chapter :  La  conscience  collective  prolctariennc  en  tant  que  facteur 
sociologique. 


ao8       ESSAYS   IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

lectivity  whatever  resigns. itself  to  adopt  such  a  system 
of  action,  which  has  the  Tminimum  technical  output, 
and  which  consequently  is  adopted  only  when  the  class 
is  not  yet  strong  enough  to  choose  a  better  plan. 

Collective  action,  in  fact,  is  of  an  intermittent  nature, 
because  it  implies  for  each  of  its  manifestations  a 
preliminary  concerted  agreement  between  an  often 
considerable  number  of  individuals.  The  economic 
phenomenon,  on  the  contrary,  and  more  than  ever  in 
these  days,  is  continuous  and  is  constantly  changing. 
Acts  of  buying,  selling,  and  transforming  different  kinds 
of  goods  go  on  without  intermission  ;  at  each  moment 
the  prices  of  raw  and  manufactured  materials  change 
with  the  conditions  of  the  market ;  it  may  be  said  that 
at  every  moment  supply  and  demand  in  manual  labour 
are  also  changing,  and,  in  consequence,  the  conditions 
of  labour.  More  stability  in  prices,  it  is  true,  is  effected 
by  combinations  of  buyers  and  sellers  of  the  same 
goods,  just  as  agreements  between  trade  unions  and 
associations  of  employers  secure  a  greater  stability  in 
the  conditions  of  manual  labour,  such  as  the  hours  in 
a  day's  work,  wages,  and  the  like.  But  that  does  not 
diminish  the  intrinsic  difficulty  which  economic  pheno- 
mena show  in  adapting  themselves  to  this  stability, 
and  does  not  prevent  them  from  tending  to  bear  heavily 
on  the  rules  imposed  upon  them  by  these  conventions, 
and  from  withdrawing  entirely  from  them  when  the 
term  of  the  agreement  has  expired.  And  this  occurs 
the  more  readily  when  on  the  side  interested  in  rejecting 
these  agreements  there  is  the  quick  will  of  a  single 
individual  such  as  an  employer,  and  on  the  other  the 
will  of  a  large  collectivity,  slow  in  expressing  itself, 


HISTORIC  MATERIALISM  209 

and  from  its  very  nature  prevented  from  that  frequent 
repetition  which  would  be  nevertheless  necessary  for 
the  preservation  at  least  of  the  economic  advantages 
already  obtained. 

To  realize  the  slow,  complicated,  and  costly  machinery 
set  in  motion  by  even  the  best  organized  of  the  trade 
unions,  whenever  a  rather  important  deliberation  is 
necessary,  we  must  read  a  few  chapters  of  the  classical 
Industrial  Democracy  of  Sidney  and  Beatrice  Webb, 
in  which  is  told  in  detail  the  history  of  the  wonderful 
system  which  has  been  gradually  created  by  the  most 
highly  organized  sections  of  the  British  working  classes. 
And  when  any  one  of  the  unions,  to  give  effect  to  its 
deliberations,  is  forced  to  enter  into  a  struggle  with  its 
opponents,  the  employers,  each  is  well  aware  of 
the  immense  economic  sacrifice  to  which  the  conflict 
is  bound  to  give  rise. 

It  follows  that  the  system  of  collective  action  aimed 
directly  at  the  economic  phenomenon,  rendering  neces- 
sary a  frequent  repetition  of  that  action,  must  always 
be  excessively  costly,  and  therefore,  as  I  have  said 
above,  must  be  technically  imperfect.  We  thus  under- 
stand how  it  comes  about  that  immediately  one  class 
acquires  the  "  weight "  strictly  necessary  for  it  to  be 
able  to  exert  its  determining  influence  upon  the  legal 
phenomena,  it  straightway  turns  its  action  on  the 
latter,  which  represents  a  technically  superior  method. 
In  fact,  the  legal  phenomenon  crystallizing,  so  to 
speak,  the  desiderata  of  the  class  into  a  scheme  of  rules 
which  are  maintained  by  themselves — i.e.  when  once 
it  is  established  it  remains  unaltered  owing  to  the 
support  derived  from  all  the  social  organs  affected  to 


210        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

the  maintenance  and  defence  of  law  in  general — it 
prolongs  the  operating  efficacy  of  the  collective  will 
of  the  class,  even  beyond  the  moment  of  its  effective 
activity,  and,  from  being  intermittent  as  it  was,  it 
makes  it,  with  regard  to  its  effects,  as  if  it  were  con- 
tinuous. Thus  when  a  national  syndicate  of  miners 
has  agitated  and  secured  by  legislation  an  eight-hours 
day,  however  great  the  cost  of  this  direct  action  on  the 
legal  phenomenon  may  be  as  compared  with  what  would 
have  been  necessary  if  the  concession  had  been  wrung 
merely  from  the  respective  employers,  it  is  always  clear 
that  the  road  followed  is  more  advantageous,  since  for 
a  long  time  to  come  there  will  be  no  need  of  a  similar 
effort. 

But  of  all  legal  phenomena  the  most  important  for 
its  efficacy  in  determining  or  modifying  the  course  of 
economic  phenomena  is  the  law  of  property.  The 
legal  phenomenon,  in  fact,  in  many  cases  meets  with 
very  great  difficulties  in  enclosing  and  maintaining 
within  its  rigid  framework  of  rules  the  economic 
phenomenon  when  the  latter  is  in  course  of  operation. 
The  economic  phenomenon,  especially  when  the  two 
parts  between  which  it  is  produced,  or  even  one  of 
them  alone,  are  formed  of  very  small  economic  units, 
whether  mere  individuals  or  small  businesses,  is  some- 
thing fugitive  and  elusive,  and  easily  slips  through 
the  meshes  of  the  legal  rules.  Thus  the  sweating 
system,  for  example,  like  usury  in  the  Middle  Ages, 
mocks  at  all  laws  contrived  to  deal  with  it.  It  is  in 
this  very  powerlessness  to  deal  with  the  economic 
phenomenon  which  is  revealed  by  the  law  in  many 
cases  that,  as  I  have  shown  above,  we  must  look 


HISTORIC  MATERIALISM  211 

for  the  origin  of  the  exaggerated  and  therefore 
erroneous  doctrine  of  the  absolute  immutability  of 
economic  phenomena  relative  to  the  human  will. 

But  all  economic  actions  and  reactions  start  from 
given  states  of  possession  of  property  to  produce  and  to 
arrive  at  other  states  of  possession.  So  that,  however 
free  they  may  otherwise  be  left,  or  come  to  be  in  practice, 
to  take  place  at  will  by  contract  between  the  different 
members  of  society,  these  economic  actions  and  re- 
actions cannot,  however,  escape  the  general  framework 
of  legal  dispositions  which  regulates  and  establishes 
the  different  modalities  of  these  initial  and  final  states 
of  possession.  Thus,  for  instance,  if  a  trust  prevents 
the  sale  of  a  large  landed  property,  the  economic 
phenomena  arising  out  of  this  state  of  possession 
would  necessarily  be  quite  different  from  those  arising 
from  the  sale  or  division  at  will  of  a  piece  of  land 
of  equal  size.  If  an  entail  requires  the  whole  of  the 
paternal  patrimony  to  belong  to  the  eldest  child,  the 
economic  phenomena  which  on  the  death  of  the  present 
holder  must  be  produced  by  the  different  children, 
must  of  necessity  be  different  from  those  which  the 
children  would  give  rise  to  were  the  patrimony  to  be 
left  to  be  divided  into  equal  portions  among  them. 
And  so  on.  So  that  these  legal  rules  determining 
the  different  modalities  of  the  states  of  possession, 
and  constituting  what  is  called  the  law  of  property, 
operate  like  a  system  of  dikes,  suitable  for  canalizing 
in  this  or  that  direction,  according  to  its  conforma- 
tion, the  whole  course  of  the  economic  phenomena. 
Thus  there  are  such  modifications  of  the  law  of 
property  which,  owing  to  the  infinite  forms  it  may 


212        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

naturally  assume,  present  themselves  as  the  most 
efficacious  means  of  action  at  the  disposal  of  any  social 
class  for  the  purpose  of  modifying  to  its  advantage 
the  economic  process. 

It  is  therefore  natural  that  the  action  of  the  different 
classes  should  always  turn  with  preference  towards 
this  means  of  maximum  efficacy,  as  soon  as  their 
degree  of  power  has  made  this  possible  to  them.  This 
condition  is  necessary,  for  just  because  of  its  efficacy 
in  essentially  modifying  the  respective  economic  con- 
ditions of  the  respective  social  classes,  it  is  the  means 
which  meets  with  the  most  obstinate  resistance  on  the 
part  of  the  classes  who  would  be  injured  by  the  intro- 
duction of  these  modifications.  So  much  the  more 
that,  while  the  legal  modifications  of  secondary  impor- 
tance, which  directly  concern  merely  certain  particular 
categories  of  economic  phenomena,  interest  only  some 
of  the  numerous  classes  or  sub-classes  into  which  society 
is  divided,  so,  on  the  contrary,  because  of  the  effects  it 
has  on  the  whole  of  economic  life,  a  fundamental  modi- 
fication of  the  law  of  property  interests  them  all  more 
or  less,  so  that  they  come  in  this  way  to  take  sides  with 
one  or  other  of  the  two  principal  antagonistic  groups. 
Thus  it  is  only  when  the  "  weight  "  of  one  of  the  classes 
or  groups  of  classes  happens  to  have  a  very  marked  pre- 
eminence on  the  previously  preponderating  "  weight " 
of  the  other  class  or  the  other  group  that  this  means 
may  be  adopted  and  may  succeed. 

These  fundamental  alterations  in  the  relative 
"  weights "  of  the  different  social  classes  give  rise  to 
what  are  really  at  bottom  social  revolutions.  But 
they  do  not  always  present  themselves  in  the  cata- 


HISTORIC  MATERIALISM  215 

strophic  form  of  which  the  French  Revolution  is  the 
classic  instance.  They  may  take  place,  especially 
nowadays,  by  perfectly  peaceful  and  legal  methods, 
owing  to  the  safety  valves  provided  by  representative 
government.  For  instance,  the  profound  modifications 
of  the  regime  of  landed  property  which  England 
was  forced  some  years  ago  to  grant  to  Ireland,  the 
introduction  of  higher  and  higher  death  duties  both  in 
England  and  the  colonies  of  Australia  and  New  Zealand, 
which,  losing  their  fiscal  character,  gradually  assume 
that  of  a  genuinely  hereditary  sharing  of  the  community 
in  private  patrimonies,  are  already  approaching  this 
type  of  peaceful  and  legal  revolutions. 

In  all  cases,  whether  these  fundamental  alterations 
of  the  relative  preponderance  of  the  different  social 
classes  take  place  in  a  catastrophic  fashion  or  by  peace- 
ful and  legal  ways,  they  happen  very  rarely  and  at  long 
intervals.  Throughout  each  intervening  period,  the 
right  of  property  remains  unaltered  in  its  fundamental 
lines,  as  they  were  determined  in  the  past  by  the  econo- 
mic interest  of  the  class  still  dominant ;  the  economic 
process,  on  the  contrary,  changes  during  the  period  and 
goes  on  evolving.  On  this  side  again  it  assumes  a 
certain  aspect  of  independence,  which  in  its  turn  has 
remarkably  contributed  to  the  blunder  into  which  the 
founders  of  historic  Materialism  have  fallen  when  they 
proclaimed  the  "  inevitable  march "  of  the  economic 
process. 

We  have  thus  three  principal  ways  in  which  the 
social  action  of  the  different  classes  is  shown,  as  they 
are  exerted  directly  on  the  economic  phenomenon, 
or  on  the  legal  phenomenon  in  general,  or  on  the  law 


214        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

of  property  in  particular.  There  is  in  addition  a  law 
which  we  may  call  the  law  of  the  three  consecutive 
stages  of  collective  action,  which  shows  us  that  the 
succession  of  these  different  modes  of  action  depends 
on  the  gradual  increase  of  the  power  of  the  class,  which 
makes  it  possible  for  it  to  pass  gradually  from  the 
least  to  the  most  efficacious  system.  And  finally  we 
have  certain  notions,  although  as  yet  quite  rudimentary, 
on  the  different  degrees  of  efficacy  with  respect  to 
economic  phenomena  of  which  each  of  these  three 
systems  of  action  is  capable.  These  three  orders  of 
facts,  in  combination  with  the  laws  which  teach  us  the 
conditions  upon  which  the  relative  "  weight "  of  the 
different  classes  depends,  represent  an  aggregate  of 
data  which  already  in  itself  takes  us  a  little  way  towards 
the  completion  of  the  sociological  law  of  the  struggle 
between  classes.  This  completion  is  just  what  we  had 
in  view,  and  it  enables  us  to  increase  continually  our 
power  of  prevision  with  reference  to  the  sociological 
phenomenality. 

Once  this  system  of  subsidiary  laws  completing  the 
principal  law  is  suitably  increased  and  improved,  we 
have  in  it  a  valuable  guide  capable  of  directing  the 
different  classes  to  the  road  which  will  be  best  for  each 
to  follow  according  to  its  circumstances  and  its  aims. 
Then,  and  only  then,  the  political  art,  in  the  highest 
sense  of  the  word,  whether  of  the  men  who  direct 
public  affairs,  or  of  the  elites  at  the  head  of  the 
different  classes,  may  rest,  as  Auguste  Comte  so 
ardently  desired,  on  really  scientific  bases. 

To  sum  up  all  that  has  been  said,  I  may  conclude 
by  the  assertion  that  in  spite  of  its  rather  numerous 


HISTORIC  MATERIALISM  215 

exaggerations,  and  especially  in  spite  of  its  glaring 
fundamental  contradiction,  historic  Materialism  has 
played  a  really  great  and  important  part  in  the  pro- 
gress and  development  of  sociological  science.  By  the 
fundamental  law  of  the  struggle  of  classes,  by  the 
relief  in  which  it  has  shown  the  economic  motive  as  a 
social  impulse  par  excellence,  by  the  importance  among 
all  sociological  phenomena  which  it  has  rightly  attri- 
buted to  the  economic  phenomenon,  which  hitherto 
had  been  completely  misunderstood  or  neglected,  by 
the  active  part  it  attributed  to  economic  pheno- 
mena in  determining  legal  phenomena,  from  whence 
is  derived,  although  in  spite  of  the  founders  of 
the  doctrine,  the  knowledge  of  the  inverse  action 
of  legal  phenomena  upon  economic  phenomena,  and 
finally  by  its  attempted  explanation,  with  the  aid 
of  these  few  fundamental  principles,  of  the  whole 
present  and  past  sociological  phenomenality,  historic 
Materialism  has  given  rise  to  an  imposing  system, 
capable  of  combining  in  a  single  whole,  now  really 
deserving  of  the  name  of  sociological  science,  the  three 
great  disciplines,  until  then  disconnected  and  inde- 
pendent, which  developed  unknown  to  each  other — 
economics,  law,  and  history.  This  is  enough  to  assure 
historic  Materialism  a  distinguished  place  among  the 
fruitful  conceptions  of  the  human  mind. 


VIII 
SOCIALISM 

THE  historic  problem  of  the  causes  of  the  socialist 
movement  of  our  time  may  now  be  said  to  be  solved. 
Apart  from  this  problem,  everything  connected  with 
socialism  seems  to  be  divided  into  two  fundamental 
and  quite  distinct  questions — its  degree  of  "prob- 
ability" and  its  degree  of  "superiority"  or  "inferiority." 
The  former  concerns  the  fact  in  itself  of  the  advent  of 
the  socialist  regime,  that  is,  if  this  advent  must  be 
considered  as  necessary,  or  probable,  or  simply  possible 
(or  impossible).  The  latter,  which  again  divides  into 
two  questions,  closely  connected  at  bottom,  is  concerned 
with  the  less  or  greater  "  hedonistic  output  "  and  the 
less  or  greater  "  equity  "  of  the  future  as  compared  with 
the  present  regime.  It  is  clear  that  nothing  can  be 
more  different  than  these  two  questions  of  relative 
probability  and  relative  superiority  or  inferiority. 
And  the  prevalent  chaos  of  opinion  is  due  to  the  fact 
that  even  the  most  eminent  writers  on  both  sides, 
socialist  and  anti-socialist,  have  so  often  made  no 
distinction  between  them  and  have,  in  fact,  treated 
them  as  one  and  the  same  question. 

However,  in  both  questions  there  is  no  doubt  that  the 

solution  will  depend  on  the  meaning  attached  to  the 

216 


SOCIALISM  217 

word  "  socialism,"  for  perhaps  in  the  whole  of  economic 
and  sociological  science  there  is  hardly  any  other  term 
so  elastic  and  uncertain  in  its  significance.  So  I 
propose  in  the  following  pages  to  examine  in  their 
broadest  outlines  how  these  questions  are  presented 
by  the  various  forms  of  socialism  which  now  hold 
the  field,  and  thus  to  handle  the  so-called  "  social 
question "  in  its  most  essential  lines  as  synthetically 
as  possible,  with  all  the  objective  impartiality  of 
which  I  am  capable. 

The  social  question  assumes  to-day  the  typical  form 
of  a  division  of  society  into  two  main,  antagonistic 
classes — the  wage-earning  classes,  without  the  instru- 
ments and  means  of  production,  and  the  capitalists. 
It  arose,  we  may  say,  with  the  gradual  disappearance 
of  domestic  and  small  industry.  This  was  the  conse- 
quence of  the  introduction  into  the  field  of  economic 
production  of  a  technical  capital  incessantly  growing 
larger  in  proportion  to  the  subsistence-capital,  which 
until  then  had  played  an  almost  exclusive,  or  at  least  a 
preponderating  role.  The  substitution  of  the  "machine" 
for  the  modest  "  tool "  of  other  days  ultimately  led  to 
a  more  and  more  notable  decrease  in  the  normal  value 
of  the  daily  work  of  the  artisan.  This  involved  his 
disappearance  in  economic  competition  as  an  inde- 
pendent worker,  since  he  had  nothing  but  his  tools 
and  subsistence-capital,  and  when  once  his  savings  were 
exhausted  he  was  compelled  to  become  a  wage-earner 
in  the  very  manufactories  which  were  his  competitors. 
This  disappearance  of  most  of  the  independent  workers, 
and  the  suppression  of  entire  social  classes  (first  of 
all — and  perhaps  the  most  important — the  hand- 


2i8        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

weavers),  this  phenomenon,  as  is  known,  reached  its 
acute  stage  in  England  at  the  beginning  of  the  last 
century. 

It  is  the  study  of  the  new  economic  regime  as  it  was 
developed  in  Britain  more  than  anywhere  else,  and  the 
painful  revelation  of  all  the  poverty  of  which  the  coming 
of  this  regime  was  the  direct  cause,  that  urged  Marx 
to  try  to  discover  the  deeply  seated  "  unfairness " 
which  seemed  to  be  part  of  its  very  being. 

Marx's  theory  of  value  implicitly  admits  as  "  equit- 
able "  only  such  an  economic  regime  as  will  guarantee 
to  the  worker  the  whole  product  of  his  work.  As  in 
the  case  of  the  social  division  of  labour  no  one  can 
consume  all  the  product  of  his  own  work,  nor  at  the 
same  time  can  he  do  without  the  labour  of  others,  so 
the  formula  will  be  replaced  by  the  following  :  All  pro- 
ducts must  be  exchanged  in  proportion  to  the  number 
of  hours  of  work  stored  up  or  crystallized  in  each  of 
them  (always  taking  into  account  the  intensity  and 
quality  of  the  work),  and  each  will  receive  in  exchange 
for  his  own  product  as  much  material  for  consumption 
as  represents  in  the  aggregate  the  same  number  of 
hours  of  work.  From  this  ideal  regime  of  distribution, 
arbitrarily  chosen  as  equitable,  Marx  proposes  to  prove 
the  "  unfairness  "  of  the  capitalist  regime. 

Stress  must  be  laid  on  the  fact  that  Marx's  theory, 
instead  of  being  a  scientific  doctrine,  impartially  seeking 
the  laws  regulating  the  relations  between  given  economic 
phenomena,  is  rather  an  "  affective  evaluation  "  of 
the  degree  of  equity  in  two  systems,  one  of  which  is 
taken  as  the  ideal  and  the  other  of  which  is  one  to  be 
attacked. 


SOCIALISM  319 

We  know  the  process  of  reasoning  followed  by  Marx 
to  show  the  "  usurpation  "  by  the  capitalist  of  his  own 
"  profit."  The  exchange  of  products  or  goods  in  the 
regime  of  free  competition  really  takes  place,  according 
to  Marx,  in  proportion  to  the  respective  quantities  of 
work  which  are  necessary  to  produce  them.  One  kind 
of  goods  alone  is  not  subject  to  this  kind  of  exchange, 
and  it  is  "  labour-power."  While  the  worker,  in  fact, 
gives  to  the  capitalist  so  many  hours  of  work — those 
stored  up  in  the  goods  which  the  latter  exchanges 
afterwards  for  others  in  proportion  to  this  labour — he 
receives  in  exchange  a  living-wage  only,  no  more  and 
no  less  than  is  strictly  necessary  to  keep  him  alive, 
i.e.  rigorously  calculated  on  the  "  cost  of  production  " 
of  labour-power.  But  such  a  sum  of  "  subsistence- 
goods  "  represents  a  quantity  of  work  far  less  than 
that  which  the  worker  has  produced.  The  value  of 
the  difference  constitutes  a  "  surplus  value  "  (Mehr- 
werth),  which  the  capitalist  appropriates  without  giving 
the  worker  anything  in  exchange,  and  which  con- 
stitutes the  "  profit  "  on  his  capital. 

This  theory  is  based  entirely  on  the  erroneous  asser- 
tion that  the  goods  are  exchanged  simply  in  proportion 
to  the  respective  quantities  of  labour  that  they  repre- 
sent. If  that  were  true  for  goods  produced  solely  by 
wages-capital,  because  then  capital  itself  is  proportional 
to  the  quantity  of  work  produced,  it  is  no  longer  so,  as 
Ricardo  has  clearly  shown,  when  the  technical  capital 
(machinery,  raw  material,  etc.)  intervenes  in  unequal 
proportions  with  respect  to  the  wages-capital  and  to  the 
corresponding  quantities  of  work  thus  put  in  action. 
In  this  case,  which  nowadays  is  the  commonest  of  all, 


230        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

the  profit  on  the  technical  capital,  the  rate  of  which  is 
measured  by  that  of  wages-capital,  causes,  as  we  know, 
the  increase  of  the  exchange-values  or  respective  prices 
of  the  goods.  If  Marx  himself,  in  the  third  and  posthu- 
mous volume  of  his  Capital,  recognized  this  disturbing 
action  of  exchange-value  on  the  fact  of  technical  capital, 
he  attempted  to  conceal  his  admission  as  far  as  possible 
in  the  ambiguous  formula  according  to  which  goods 
which  have  demanded  different  proportions  of  technical 
capital  are  no  longer  sold  at  their  value. 

Why  did  Marx  fear  to  recognize  openly  the  truth  of 
facts,  i.e.  that  the  profit  of  the  technical  capital  contri- 
butes to  the  exchange-value  of  the  goods  ?  Why  does 
he  attach  so  much  importance  to  the  denial  that  raising 
of  prices  is  caused  by  the  profit  on  the  technical  capital  ? 
Certainly  it  is  not  on  this  that  the  equity  or  non-equity 
of  the  profit  can  depend.  The  whole  difference  consists 
in  this  :  According  to  Marx,  the  profit  on  both  capitals 
— wages-capital  and  technical  capital — is  taken  from 
the  worker  in  his  quality  as  producer.  According  to 
the  contrary  theory,  if  the  worker  as  producer  is  com- 
pelled to  surrender  only  the  profit  on  the  wages-capital, 
it  is  later  as  consumer,  on  account  of  the  rise  in  price 
of  goods  produced  by  a  technical  capital,  that  he  has 
to  pay  the  profit  on  the  technical  capital.  As  each 
workman  is  at  once  producer  and  consumer,  Marx's 
theory  of  value  in  proving  the  equity  or  the  non-equity 
of  profit  has  by  no  means  the  importance  attributed 
to  it  by  socialists  in  general  and  by  collectivists  in 
particular. 

Even  if  Marx's  theory  of  value  be  accepted  as  true, 
it  would  give  us  no  "  proof  "  of  the  unfairness  of  profit ; 


SOCIALISM  221 

for  a  Senior  could  always  object  that  the  surplus  value 
constituting  the  profit  is  nothing  but  the  "  reward  of 
abstinence  "  which  in  equity  comes  to  the  capitalist 
for  his  function  of  thrift  and  accumulation.  It  little 
matters  that  Marx,  anticipating  this  objection,  tries 
to  show  that  the  origin  of  capital,  far  from  being  found 
in  labour  and  abstinence,  goes  back  to  the  violent 
usurpation  of  lands  which  were  already  the  property 
of  the  community.  This  impure  origin — which  in 
part  is  true — does  not  prevent  capital  in  its  course  of 
continual  transformation  and  increase  from  arising 
nowadays,  in  the  normal  way,  from  thrift  and  accu- 
mulation. 

The  importance  attached  by  Marx  and  his  school  to 
the  most  rigorous  proportionality  between  the  exchange- 
value  of  commodities  and  the  quantity  of  labour  neces- 
sary for  their  production,  would  be  justified  if  the  fact 
that  capital  does  not  contribute  to  the  increase  of  the 
exchange-value  of  commodities  signified  that  capital 
is  of  no  value  to  the  community.  But  evidently  there  is 
no  correlation  between  the  two  orders  of  ideas.  It 
cannot,  however,  be  denied  that  this  was  the  real  reason 
why  Marx's  value  theory  in  the  eyes  of  most  people 
seemed  to  contain  a  "  proof "  of  the  unfairness  of 
profit. 

The  question  from  the  point  of  view  of  "  equity  "  does 
not  consist  then  in  ascertaining  in  what  particular  way 
capital  succeeded  in  levying  its  profit  on  the  total  sum 
of  social  production.  This  concerns  the  scientific  point 
of  view  of  the  analysis  of  the  process  of  the  production 
and  division  of  wealth,  but  has  nothing  in  common 
with  the  problem  of  finding  out  if  profit,  thus  levied 


222        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

in  one  way  or  another  on  the  annual  social  fund,  is 
equitable  or  not. 

To  solve  this  question  the  first  step  would  be  to 
examine  if  capital  is  or  is  not  useful.  Two  cases  might 
be  presented,  which,  although  strongly  contrasted, 
would  have  both  led  Marx  to  deny  the  equity  of  profit 
independently  of  any  theory  of  value.  After  having 
established  the  fact  that  capital  is  useless,  or  even  baneful 
(as,  for  instance,  many  economists  did  not  hesitate  to 
maintain  during  the  painful  crisis  referred  to  above, 
in  which  the  whole  body  of  handicraftsmen  was  thrust 
into  the  proletariat),  he  would  have  been  able  ipso 
facto  to  infer  the  unfairness  of  profit.  But  even  if  he 
had  explicitly  recognized  the  utility  of  capital,  and 
therefore  the  "  equity  "  of  a  certain  "  reward  for  abstin- 
ence," he  would  still  have  been  able  to  object  that  this 
did  not  necessarily  imply  the  equity  of  "  profit  "  in 
general.  For  he  would  still  have  had  to  ascertain  if  such 
a  profit — it  being  given  that  it  does  not  concern  the 
person,  but  the  thing  in  itself  as  long  as  the  latter  lasts 
and  even  if  this  thing  is  found  in  other  hands  than  those 
that  originally  accumulated  it — if  this  profit,  I  say, 
would  not  eventually  exceed  that  amount  strictly 
necessary  and  sufficient  to  give  the  maximum  impulse 
to  thrift  and  accumulation,  or,  worse  still,  if  it  would 
not  eventually  degenerate  at  last  into  a  mere  right  of 
levy  on  the  annual  social  product  conceded  to  a  few 
privileged  individuals,  with  no  reciprocity  on  their  part 
for  any  real  contribution  of  service.  But  Marx,  as  we 
know,  satisfied  by  his  "  proof  "  of  the  unfairness  of 
profit  based  on  his  theory  of  value,  never  dreamed  of 
making  an  inquiry  of  this  kind. 


SOCIALISM  223 

At  any  rate,  after  having  shown  in  his  characteristic 
way  the  unfairness  of  the  capitalist  regime,  Marx  does 
not  set  himself  to  sketch,  as  his  predecessors  did,  those 
fantastic  projects  of  social  reconstruction,  which  they 
hope  to  realize  by  this  or  that  measure  insignificant 
in  itself,  but  possessing  the  magical  virtues  of  regenera- 
tion ;  he  preferred  an  extra-judicial  inquiry  into  the 
direction  which  by  the  force  of  things  and  not  by  the 
will  of  man  the  economic  process  itself  inevitably  follows. 

Hence  arises  the  great  distinction  drawn  by  collec- 
tivists  between  the  earlier  "  Utopian  "  socialism  and  the 
"  scientific  "  socialism  of  Marx. 

Here  then  was  abandoned  the  question  of  the  evalua- 
tion of  the  comparative  equity  of  one  given  regime 
with  respect  to  another,  and  was  attacked,  or  rather 
ought  to  have  been  attacked,  the  purely  scientific 
question  of  the  disinterested  examination  of  the  natural 
laws  which  regulate  the  dynamics  of  economic  relations. 

But  in  this  connection,  in  spite  of  all  the  appearances 
in  his  favour,  Marx  does  not  really  escape  from  the 
Utopian  socialism  which  preceded  him.  For  once  the 
equity  of  a  given  regime  is  admitted,  he  flatters  himself 
that  he  can  compel  facts  to  prove  that  the  present 
regime,  by  its  simple  and  more  and  more  unfair  develop- 
ment, tends  to  the  ideal  regime.  From  the  thesis 
springs  the  antithesis,  of  which  will  be  made  the  syn- 
thesis, in  the  Hegelian  sense. 

We  all  know  in  what  consists  the  process  of  capitalist 
accumulation  and  concentration,  by  means  of  which 
Marx,  by  the  predominance  of  the  ever  larger  under- 
takings which  survive  their  small  competitors,  has 
transported  into  the  economic  domain  that  struggle  for 


224        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

existence  and  that  natural  selection  of  the  fittest  which 
Darwin  about  ^the  same  timejwas  applying  to  biology. 
Very  laborious,  in  fact,  must  have  been  the  growth  of 
modern  capitalism  in  its  beginnings,  and  very  deep  the 
impression  that  the  fierce  competition  by  which  capital- 
ism .strengthened  its  position  must  have  made  upon 
contemporaries,  if  the  conception  of  a  merciless  struggle 
and  an  incessant  hecatomb  of  victims  could  of  itself 
penetrate,  simultaneously  and  independently,  the  two 
great  theories  of  the  middle  of  the  last  century — the 
one  directly  and  the  other,  thanks  to  the  work  of 
Malthus,  indirectly — and  that,  too,  in  such  a  way  as  to 
seem  to  be  the  pivot  of  the  whole  of  biological  and 
economic  evolution  ! 

Capitalist  concentration  carried  to  its  furthest  limits 
will  lead,  as  Marx  prophesied,  to  a  concentration  of  the 
whole  of  production  into  the  hands  of  a  very  few 
capitalist  magnates.  At  that  point,  it  will  suffice  to 
burst,  by  way  of  revolutionary  expropriation  on  the 
part  of  the  proletariat,  the  fragile  capitalist  wrappings, 
in  order  to  obtain  and  to  install  immediately  the  new 
and  already  matured  collectivist  regime. 

Although,  with  the  exception  of  the  catastrophic 
conception  which  brings  it  to  a  close,  this  is  the  most 
masterly  part  of  the  work  of  Marx,  and  although,  as 
in  the  case  of  the  trusts  of  later  days,  some  of  his  pre- 
dictions have  come  true,  it  cannot  however  be  said 
that  on  the  whole 'his  predictions  resist  the  objective 
examination  of  facts,  and  in  particular  of  such  facts  as 
have  been  developed  since  his  time. 

The  numerous  data  placed  at  our  disposal  by  more 
and  more  improved  systems  of  economic  statistics, 


SOCIALISM  225 

their  elaboration  by  the  two  opposed  camps  and  the 
polemics  they  have  provoked  in  dissidents  even  of  the 
socialist  camp,  such  as  Kautsky  and  Bernstein,  now 
enable  us  to  make  two  definite  statements.  In  the 
first  place,  if  one  cannot  deny  a  certain  tendency  on 
the  part  of  the  great  productive  enterprises  to  increase 
still  further,  and  to  be  concentrated  in  more  and  more 
gigantic  trusts,  it  is  not  however  universal,  and,  on 
the  contrary,  in  many  spheres  of  industry  small  and 
ordinary  sized  businesses  still  successfully  resist  the 
encroachment  of  their  powerful  competitors.  In  the 
second  place,  it  must  be  recognized  that  to  this 
concentration  of  "  enterprises "  there  is  not  always 
a  parallel  correspondence  in  a  concentration  of  "  pro- 
perty," for  partnership  makes  a  certain  division  of 
the  latter  compatible  with  the  former.  At  any  rate, 
the  concentration  of  productive  enterprises  and  of  the 
property  of  capital  does  not  take  place  equally  every- 
where, as  it  must  if  at  the  right  moment  the  capitalist 
mould  is  to  be  broken  at  one  blow,  and  the  collectivist 
regime  to  be  at  once  installed  in  its  entirety.  On  the 
other  hand,  we  cannot  conceive  of  revolutionary  expro- 
priation repeated  more  than  once,  first  of  all  of  the  more 
"  concentrated  "  enterprises,  in  the  serene  expectation 
that  the  others  also  will  reach  the  requisite  degree  of 
concentration  before  being  in  their  turn  expropriated 
without  compensation.  And  finally,  the  relative  powers 
of  the  capitalist  class  which  is  to  be  expropriated  and 
of  the  wage-earning  class  which  would  expropriate  it 
do  not,  in  fact,  as  we  shall  later  see,  tend  to  become 
such  as  to  allow  of  a  revolutionary  act  of  this  nature 
and  of  such  gravity. 

15 


226        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

Of  the  collectivist  theory  there  remains,  from  the 
practical  point  of  view,  nothing  but  the  concept  and 
the  tendency  to  entrust  to  the  community  (State, 
province,  commune)  the  carrying  on  of  certain  industries 
which  are  at  once  monopolies  and  public  services. 
But  it  would  be  a  great  illusion  to  suppose  that  we  can 
see  in  this  even  the  minutest  beginning  of  realization 
for  the  catastrophe  predicted  by  Marx.  There  is  here 
no  trace  of  revolutionary  expropriation,  but  a  gradual 
transformation  proceeding  by  way  of  expropriation 
with  complete  compensation.  This  compensation  and 
the  capital  necessary  for  the  carrying  on  of  the  enter- 
prise can  be  procured  nowadays  only  by  means  of 
credit.  It  is  enough  to  show  that  such  a  process 
must  be  widely  limited  in  its  action,  that  it  must 
entirely  lose  its  political  character  and  become  a 
purely  technical  question  regarding  the  administrative 
capacity  of  the  public  authorities  and  the  economic 
advantage  of  the  whole  community,  a  question  to 
which  different  answers  will  be  received  in  each  par- 
ticular case. 

It  would  therefore  be  useless  to  waste  time  in  dealing 
even  briefly  with  the  question  of  the  "  hedonistic  out- 
put "  of  the  collectivist  regime,  as  presented  in  Schaffle's 
classic  exposition.  The  collectivists  adopted  certain 
arguments  to  establish  the  superiority  of  a  unitary 
organization  of  the  whole  of  production,  in  comparison 
with  the  present  anarchy  of  individualistic  production 
and  free  competition  (for  which,  moreover,  the  cartels 
and  trusts  of  to-day  have  tried  to  find  a  partial  remedy). 
To  these  arguments  the  partisans  of  liberty  replied, 
with  Paul  Leroy-Beaulieu  at  the  head,  by  first  denying 


SOCIALISM  227 

the  very  possibility-  of  such  a  regime,  and  by  setting 
forth  in  each  case  the  beneficent  effects  of  the  private 
initiative  and  competition  which  stimulates  as  compared 
with  the  inertia  and  dilatory  measures  which  have  made 
bureaucracy  proverbial,  and,  in  general,  by  insisting 
on  the  incapacity  shown  by  the  State  and  public 
authorities  in  carrying  on  direct  production. 

The  collectivists  replied  that  in  the  question  of 
"  hedonistic  output  "  is  included,  not  only  the  question 
of  economic  productivity  in  the  absolute  sense,  but 
the  other  question  which  looks  to  a  better  division 
of  wealth,  seeing  that  by  equality  of  economic  pro- 
duction the  "  hedonistic  output "  increases  for  the 
whole  of  society  in  proportion  as  the  division  of 
wealth  is  less  unequal. 

The  liberals  were  nevertheless  justified  in  retorting, 
here  also  with  Paul  Leroy-Beaulieu,  and  especially 
with  Spencer,  that  a  limitation  of  each  individual 
liberty — the  menace  of  which  was  necessarily  implied 
in  a  regime  in  which  the  State  imperiously  disposed 
of  all  the  human  forces  of  labour,  and  became  the 
producer  of  all  the  goods  of  consumption,  both 
material  and  intellectual — must  be  counted  so  serious 
a  hedonistic  loss  that  no  material  advantage  can  make 
up  for  it. 

But  it  would  be  idle,  as  I  have  said,  to  dwell  at  length 
on  these  controversies,  in  spite  of  the  great  echo  they 
awakened  in  the  past,  for  the  very  good  reason  that  the 
pure  and  genuine  collectivist  regime  is  itself  relegated 
henceforth  by  the  socialists  themselves  to  the  limbo  of 
Utopias. 

It  will  be  more  to  the  point  to  give  a  very  rapid 


228        ESSAYS  IN   SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

summary  of  the  other  socialisms  before  and  after  Marx, 
seeing  that  all,  it  may  be  said — just  as  it  has  been  the 
case  with  collectivism  in  regard  to  the  socialization 
of  the  public  services  above  mentioned — have  left  in 
their  wreckage  some  vital  residue,  and  that  it  is  of 
all  these  vital  residues  that  the  complex  socialism 
of  to-day  is  to  a  large  extent  composed. 

Thus,  for  instance,  in  "  co-operative  socialism " 
the  illusion  of  Buchez  and  Louis  Blanc  as  to  the  irresis- 
tible force  of  self-expansion  which  they  attributed  to 
co-operation  of  production  quickly  vanished,  and  the 
economic  blunder  of  Proudhon  and  Lassalle,  as  to  the 
supposed  capacity  attributed  to  credit  of  creating 
capital,  was  easily  unmasked.  But  there  yet  remained 
the  fruitful  and  living  idea  of  co-operation  of  pro- 
duction, agricultural  and  industrial,  and  advances 
of  capital  by  which  the  State  can  come  to  its  aid 
and  give  an  impulse — by  rural  banks,  banks  for 
co-operatives,  labour  banks  —  which  the  different 
States  are  already  tending  more  and  more  to  create 
and  support. 

The  same  is  true  of  the  "  agrarian  "  or  "  landed  " 
socialism  of  Wallace  and  George. 

The  proposal  of  Wallace,  Darwin's  illustrious  rival, 
of  nationalizing  the  land,  was  based,  as  we  know, 
on  the  Ricardo  theory  of  rent.  This  indeed  enabled 
Wallace  to  affirm  that  the  differential  rents  should 
belong  to  the  community  alone,  being  the  exclusive 
product  of  the  unequal  generosity  with  which  Nature 
had  endowed  the  various  types  of  land  with  her 
"  indestructible  forces."  But  it  was  easy  to  object 
that,  at  bottom,  there  was  no  reason  to  give  to  land 


SOCIALISM  229 

a  place  apart  and  privileged  among  all  the  other 
instruments  and  means  of  production. 

If  land,  in  fact,  still  perhaps  represents  the  most 
important  class  of  instruments  of  production  as  compared 
with  any  other  single  class,  it  henceforth  represents, 
in  the  countries  most  advanced  from  the  economic 
point  of  view,  but  a  very  small  and  daily  decreasing 
fraction  of  the  total  value  of  the  instruments  of  pro- 
duction and  of  capital  in  general. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  true  that  the  untilled  sur- 
face of  cultivable  land  was  made  by  no  one,  the  same 
is  true  of  the  land  on  which  a  factory  stands  ;  but  the 
land  as  well  as  the  factory  had  to  absorb  very  notable 
quantities  of  human  labour  and  capital  before  reaching 
its  present  productive  capacity. 

And  if  the  different  types  of  land  represent  different 
degrees  of  fertility,  these  are  now,  just  as  in  manu- 
factories, which  in  the  same  industry  have  a  variable 
technical  efficiency,  "  acquired  "  qualitative  differences 
which  are  much  more  important  now  than  the  primordial 
natural  differences. 

But  even  though  the  land,  unlike  other  instruments 
of  production,  always  owed  its  productive  capacity 
and  its  qualitative  differences  to  Nature  rather  than  to 
human  labour,  it  is  right  to  remark  that  the  present 
proprietors  of  the  soil,  if  not  in  England  at  any  rate 
on  the  Continent,  have  become  so  by  purchase,  and 
that  therefore,  from  the  positive  legal  point  of  view  as 
well  as  that  of  abstract  equity,  they  do  not  differ  from 
the  proprietors  of  capital.  It  would  not  be  "  equit- 
able," therefore,  even  from  the  socialist  point  of  view, 
to  subject  the  former  to  some  form  of  expropriation 


23° 

without  compensation,  if  it  were  not  thought  that  the 
same  treatment  should  be  meted  out  to  the  rest. 

George,  on  the  contrary,  as  we  also  know,  turned  his 
attention  rather  to  the  rent  of  the  surface  or  site,  which 
was  a  differential  rent  by  the  same  title  as  Ricardo's, 
but  which  was  produced,  in  fact,  independently  of  all 
labour  or  assistance  on  the  part  of  the  occupant,  and 
which,  in  rapidly  growing  large  towns  for  instance,  is 
continually  increasing  and  often  attains  fabulous 
dimensions. 

The  vital  part  of  Wallace's  socialism  is  the  principle 
of  retaining  as  collective  property  not  only  all  forests 
and  cultivable  land  already  belonging  to  the  State,  the 
province,  or  the  commune,  or  capable  of  becoming 
such,  and  letting  them  out  on  lease  to  private  con- 
tractors or  to  rural  co-operative  societies,  but  also  all 
new  mines,  all  waterfalls  utilizable  as  sources  of  power — 
in  fact,  all  the  new  natural  forces  capable  of  producing  in 
any  manner  a  Ricardian  rent.  Of  George's  socialism, 
in  an  attenuated  form  there  remains  the  principle  of 
devolution  to  the  community  of  all  "  unearned  incre- 
ment "  of  urban  areas  due  to  the  growth  of  population, 
the  analogous  principle  of  the  "  betterment  tax  "  for 
all  surplus  value  of  urban  estates  due  to  public  work 
undertaken  by  the  communes,  and  the  tendency  to 
preserve  as  collective  property  the  ground  obtained 
by  pulling  down  old  parts  of  towns,  and  the  new  urban 
estates  built  on  this  ground,  so  as  to  compensate  the 
whole  community,  in  short,  in  some  way  or  other,  for 
the  injury  that  each  of  its  non-property-holding  members 
suffers  individually  from  the  fact  of  all  these  increased 
values  of  the  urban  area. 


SOCIALISM  231 

On  the  contrary,  it  does  not  seem  to  me  that  we 
can  preserve  any  vital  remainder  or  draw  any  practical 
applications  from  the  agrarian  "  integral "  socialism 
advocated  by  Loria,  in  opposition  to  the  agrarian 
"  partial "  socialism  of  Wallace  and  George,  which, 
in  his  opinion,  would  "  for  ever  eliminate  not  only  the 
rent  of  the  land  but  also  the  profit  on  the  capital, 
i.e.  would  destroy  once  for  all  the  whole  structure  of 
the  capitalist  economy." 

In  his  studies  of  the  English  colonies  in  America  and 
Australia,  Loria  was  greatly  struck  by  the  fact  that  the 
capitalists  who  emigrated  thither  could  not,  even  by 
the  offer  of  the  highest  wages,  succeed  in  retaining  the 
services  of  the  workers  they  required,  because  the  latter 
went  off  to  the  still  virgin  and  unoccupied  lands  of  these 
new  and  fertile  countries,  where  they  were  attracted 
by  the  possibility  of  becoming  independent  cultivators 
of  the  soil. 

The  British  economists  had  already  observed  and 
commented  on  this  phenomenon,  but  they  had  implicitly 
held  that  it  was  peculiar  to  that  part  of  the  world  and 
to  that  moment,  corresponding  to  the  beginning  of 
modern  colonies.  It  was  Loria's  great  and  unchallenged 
merit  to  have  widened  the  reach  of  this  phenomenon  in 
space  and  time. 

Here,  in  fact,  he  has  seen  the  principal  cause  of 
slavery  in  ancient  and  modern  times  (with  the  negroes 
in  the  American  colonies  and  the  deported  convicts 
from  the  mother  country  in  Australia)  because,  as  long 
as  portions  of  land  remain  unoccupied  and  free,  coercion 
is  the  only  way  by  which  capital  can  obtain  workers 
and  make  its  profit.  On  the  other  hand,  in  the  increas- 


232        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

ing  density  of  population,  and  in  the  consequent 
and  ever-increasing  difficulty  of  the  labourer  to  reach 
the  free  land,  and  there  to  obtain  by  his  work  alone  his 
means  of  livelihood,  he  recognized  the  cause  of  the 
gradual  mitigation  of  slavery,  itself  replaced,  first  by 
serfdom  and  then  by  the  wage  system.  That  is  the 
best  and  the  really  scientific  part  of  Loria's  work. 

But  he  thought  he  saw  in  a  return  to  free  land  the 
solution  of  the  social  question.  Let  the  capitalists, 
said  he,  accumulate  and  keep  their  capital ;  if  you  give 
the  worker  the  "  right  to  the  land  "  it  will  be  impossible 
for  them  to  draw  the  slightest  profit  from  their  capital. 
In  fact,  between  the  worker  who  has  the  virtual  right 
to  betake  himself  at  his  free  will  to  the  free  land  on 
which  he  can  work  for  his  own  advantage,  and  the 
capitalist  who  supplies  all  the  capital  required,  there 
can  be  established,  to  prevent  the  worker  from  enjoying 
his  virtual  right  to  the  soil,  only  the  "  mixed  associa- 
tion "  on  absolutely  equal  terms,  i.e.  capitalist  and 
labourer,  both  alike  working,  share  the  produce  in  pro- 
portion to  the  quantity  of  work  that  each  has  furnished. 

I  need  not  dwell  on  the  "  unfairness  in  the  other 
direction  "  of  a  similar  system  in  which  the  capitalist, 
even  if  he  were  to  accumulate  fresh  capital,  could  no 
longer  receive  the  smallest  reward  for  abstinence.  I 
shall  no  longer  insist  on  the  absolute  impossibility  of 
conceiving  how  the  State  could  in  our  old  and  densely 
peopled  countries  guarantee  to  each  his  "  imprescrip- 
tible right  to  the  soil,"  i.e.  his  claim  to  plant  himself, 
according  to  his  pleasure  and  when  he  felt  the  need, 
upon  a  morsel  of  land,  or  "  land  unit,"  as  our  author 
calls  it,  sufficient  to  maintain  him  by  his  own  work, 


SOCIALISM  233 

even  if  he  have  no  other  capital.  I  will  rather  dwell 
for  a  moment  on  Loria's  statement  that  the  present 
regime  tends  inevitably  to  restore  such  a  regime  of 
free  land. 

He  foresees,  in  fact,  that  antagonistic  interests, 
developing  in  the  midst  of  the  present  economic  regime, 
will  lead  to  a  complicated  system  of  reciprocal  pro- 
ductive limitation  for  the  different  categories  of  the 
production  of  wealth,  and  therefore  to  a  general 
economic  depression,  and  to  a  permanent  land  crisis 
which  will  "  launch  upon  the  market  a  continual 
supply  of  parcels  of  depreciated  land."  So  that 
"  free  land "  will  reappear  and  the  State  will  only 
have  to  sanction,  by  its  "  prescriptible  right  to  the 
land,"  a  state  of  things  already  established  in  fact 
and  of  itself  inevitable. 

This  is  Marx  over  again.  Seduced  by  the  mirage 
of  a  regime  of  equity,  which  in  his  opinion  must  be 
established  spontaneously  at  the  beginning  of  all  society, 
when  most  of  the  land  is  still  free  and  fertile,  Loria  has 
also  flattered  himself  that  he  can  compel  the  facts  to 
prove  that  the  present  regime,  by  its  very  iniquities, 
must  lead  us  anew  to  a  regime  of  equity,  like  that  of 
the  original  State.  But  it  must  be  recognized  that, 
while  for  the  catastrophe  conceived  by  Marx  a  whole 
series  of  facts,  the  tendency  to  capitalist  accumulation 
and  concentration,  could  really  be  presented  in  support, 
no  fact,  on  the  contrary,  seems  to  me  to  support  a 
return  to  a  regime  of  free  land.  This  appears  to  me  the 
least  successful  and  the  most  unsound  part  of  the  whole 
of  Loria's  work. 

While  all  these  more  or  less  theoretical  socialisms 


234       ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

were  being  elaborated,  the  fact  on  which  even  the 
purest  materialist  fatalists  had  counted,  beginning  with 
Marx,  namely,  the  continuous  increase  of  relative  class 
power  recognized  in  the  proletariat,  seemed  to  tend  to 
be  realized. 

The  proletarization  of  the  whole  body  of  handicrafts- 
men on  the  first  invasion  of  modern  capitalism  had 
made  the  interests  of  the  immense  mass  of  workers 
economically  homogeneous,  all  being  equally  reduced 
henceforth  to  wage-earning,  and  all  being  deprived  of 
every  instrument  and  of  the  other  indispensable  means 
of  labour.  At  the  same  time,  the  crowding  together 
of  more  and  more  considerable  masses  of  working  men 
in  the  factories  led  to  common  understanding  and 
agreement,  and  to  their  rapid  awakening  to  a  collective 
class  conscience.  To  this  a  little  later  was  added,  on 
the  one  hand,  a  raising  of  their  intellectual  level  owing 
to  compulsory  elementary  education,  and  to  technical 
instruction,  both  demanded  by  the  capitalist  class 
itself  as  a  condition  necessary  for  the  introduction  of 
ever  more  complex  and  delicate  productive-technical 
improvements,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  increase 
of  the  economic  power  of  the  wage-earning  class.  In 
fact,  given  the  great  number  of  its  members,  the  even 
modest  increase  of  individual  wages,  at  least  of  certain 
groups  among  them,  obtained  by  the  first  unions 
which  sprung  spontaneously  from  the  massing  together 
of  the  men,  had  for  its  result  a  notable  increase  of  the 
economic  power  of  the  class  as  a  whole.  So  that  we 
see  that  the  proletariat  has  now  the  means  of  subsi- 
dizing a  complete  staff  of  its  own  employes,  whose 
sole  function  is  to  organize  and  direct  the  movemen 


SOCIALISM  235 

to  the  advantage  of  the  common  demands.  Finally, 
in  our  own  time  the  wonderful  development  of  every 
means  of  transmission  of  thought  has  favoured,  for 
purposes  of  collective  understanding  and  concerted 
action,  the  poor  and  numerous  classes  more  than  the 
others. 

Such  were  the  multiple  and  simultaneous  causes 
which,  together  with  the  weakening  of  the  religious 
sentiment  predisposing  from  all  antiquity  to  obedience, 
had  thus  contributed  to  foment  the  spirit  of  demand 
in  the  working  classes  and  to  give  them,  as  a  social 
class,  greater  and  greater  weight. 

That  is  why  the  postulates  of  the  other  socialisms, 
of  which  I  have  yet  to  give  a  very  short  account,  and 
which  we  can  classify  in  the  two  great  categories  of 
"  reformist  "  and  "  legal  "  socialism,  have  more 
or  less  partially  found,  or  can  find,  their  practical 
realization. 

Many  reforms,  in  fact,  recommended  by  Christian 
socialism,  both  evangelical  and  catholic,  by  "  profes- 
sorial "  socialism,  by  State  socialism,  have  already 
received,  and  will  continue  more  and  more  rapidly  to 
receive,  legislative  sanction.  That  sanction  is  the  only 
means  of  imposing  upon  all  employers,  without  pre- 
judicing them  individually,  certain  measures  which,  if 
taken  only  by  some  of  these  employers,  would  leave 
each  of  them,  on  the  contrary,  in  an  unfair  position 
with  respect  to  his  competitors.  Thus  the  laws  for- 
bidding night  work,  or  limiting  the  hours  of  day  work 
for  women  and  children,  and  even  for  adult  men  in 
certain  industries  and  in  certain  countries,  compulsory 
holidays,  measures  taken  to  cope  with  the  unhealthi- 


236        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

ness  of  certain  industries,  measures  of  prevention  of 
accidents,  insurance  against  accidents  and  professional 
diseases  and  against  all  diseases  in  general,  old-age 
pensions,  regulations  for  the  internal  discipline  of 
factories,  and  the  institution  of  arbitration  tending 
to  secure  the  peaceful  settlement  of  disputes  and  to 
guarantee  greater  equity  in  the  relations  between 
the  workmen  and  their  employers,  etc. — these,  it  may 
be  said,  are  at  present  the  sole  form  of  socialism  in 
the  way  of  practical  realization. 

But  a  question  arises  whether  this  pressure  on  the 
part  of  the  proletariat  can  go  on  for  long  within  the 
limits  of  these  reforms,  all  of  which  are  undoubtedly 
useful  (although  sometimes  exposed  to  countervailing 
economic  checks  which  may  turn  them  to  the  disadvan- 
tage of  the  class  they  are  to  benefit),  but  which  are  very 
modest  measures  compared  with  the  "  complete  emanci- 
pation "  with  which  the  working  man  was  dazzled  at 
the  dawn  of  the  socialist  movement ;  or  rather  if  the 
very  power  of  the  proletariat,  ever  increasing,  will  not 
urge  it  to  adopt  in  place  of  the  present  "  reformist  " 
socialism  that  "  legal  "  socialism  which  aims  at  securing, 
by  legislative  means,  profound  modifications  in  the 
present  form  of  the  rights  of  property. 

The  complex  right  of  property  may  be  considered 
from  both  the  legal  and  economic  aspect — according 
to  Sumner  Maine  and  Adolphe  Wagner  respectively— 
as  a  "  bundle  "  or  a  "  sum  "  of  particular  rights  or 
powers,  distinct  from  each  other,  and  such  that  each 
may  be  separately  enjoyed.  And  of  all  these  rights, 
those  in  particular  attacked  by  the  different  kinds  of 
"  legal  "  socialism,  from  the  most  radical  to  the  most 


SOCIALISM  237 

moderate,  have  always  been  the  right  of  inheriting  and 
the  right  of  disposing  of  property  by  testament. 

They  come  into  conflict  especially  with  the  concept 
of  equity,  in  the  form  it  has  gradually  assumed  in  our 
time,  which  is  summed  up  by  the  formula  so  dear  to 
orthodox  liberal  economists,  "  to  each  according  ta 
his  work  and  deserts."  And  the  more  so,  add  the 
"  legal "  socialists,  because,  thanks  to  the  transfor- 
mation into  profit-bearing  capital  of  all  goods  of 
consumption  or  products  in  general  from  the  first 
moment  of  their  accumulation,  the  rights  of  inheriting 
and  leaving  property  by  will  no  longer  invest  the 
heir  with  the  free  disposal  of  a  limited  quantity  of 
commodities,  previously  produced  and  not  consumed 
by  his  own  father,  but  rather  with  a  right  of  levying 
every  year  and  for  an  infinite  time,  with  no  real  per- 
sonal service  in  return,  a  portion  of  the  commodities 
of  consumption  incessantly  renewed  and  due  to  the 
work  of  others.  At  the  same  time,  the  rights  of 
inheriting  and  of  disposing  by  testament  appear  to 
"  legal "  socialists  as  the  greatest  obstacle  to  that 
socialization  of  capitals  which  they  consider  indis- 
pensable to  guarantee  to  the  worker  the  free  and 
gratuitous  disposal  of  the  instruments  and  means 
necessary  for  his  work. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  an  undeniable  fact  that  the 
rights  of  inheriting  and  of  disposing  by  testament 
constitute  in  these  days  the  most  powerful  if  not  the 
only  stimulus  to  work,  thrift,  and  the  indispensable 
and  profitable  accumulation  of  ever  fresh  capital.  And 
it  is  just  such  a  consideration  as  this  that  has  always 
caused  the  failure,  even  from  the  theoretical  point  of 


238        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

view,  of  every  proposal,  as,  for  instance,  that  of  the 
school  of  Saint-Simon,  of  a  pure  and  simple  abolition 
of  these  rights. 

"  Legal  "  socialism,  therefore,  is  always  seen  compelled 
to  defend  intermediary  transformations.  Thus  De  Lave- 
leye  and  Wagner  are  content  with  simple  death  duties, 
proportional  or  progressive  according  to  the  size  of  the 
patrimony,  to  be  applied  to  the  gradual  nationalization 
of  the  land  or  the  gradual  municipalization  of  urban 
estates.  John  Stuart  Mill,  who  in  certain  ways  may  be 
considered  as  a  "  legal  "  socialist,  preferred  to  retain 
the  right  of  disposing  by  will  of  the  whole  of  the  patri- 
mony, but  to  suppress  the  right  of  inheriting  a  patrimony 
beyond  a  certain  restricted  limit  of  size.  He  thus  had 
in  view  a  greater  equalization  of  private  fortunes,  and 
he  desired  to  prevent  great  hereditary  estates  from 
encouraging  idleness,  and,  may  I  add,  from  dissuading 
from  that  later  accumulation  and  capitalization  of  the 
respective  revenues,  which,  because  of  the  very  size  of 
the  patrimony  inherited,  in  most  cases  becomes  quite 
useless  and  is  therefore  completely  neglected.  Huet 
would  allow  the  man  who  accumulated  wealth  a  com- 
plete and  absolute  right  to  leave  it  by  will,  but  he  would 
not  allow  the  heir  to  dispose  of  his  inheritance,  which 
came  back  of  right  to  the  State  ;  but  the  State  should 
afterwards,  according  to  this  writer,  lease  out  as  private 
property  these  thus  nationalized  patrimonies,  by  dis- 
tributing them  in  accordance  with  certain  equitable 
principles.  In  his  land  nationalization  schemes  Wallace 
proposed  that  the  annuities  paid  by  the  State  to  each 
landlord  for  the  redemption  of  the  natural  Ricardian 
rent  (quit-rent),  which,  as  Wallace  said,  he  had  always 


SOCIALISM  239 

unfairly  enjoyed,  should  still  be  paid  to  such  heirs 
as  were  born  at  the  date  of  the  passing  of  the  law, 
so  that  no  person  should  be  disappointed  of  such 
hopes  as  had  hitherto  been  legitimatized  by  the  State  : 
but  that  they  would  cease  immediately  on  the  death 
of  those  heirs. 

Here  I  may  be  permitted  to  recall  my  proposal  of 
a  levy  "  progressive  in  time  "  made  by  the  State  on 
successions.  It  took  the  form  of  a  moderate  levy  on 
patrimonies  arising  from  labour  and  personal  thrift, 
but  would  increase  rapidly  for  the  different  portions  of 
patrimony  hereditarily  acquired  by  the  dead,  by  the 
fact  that  for  each  of  these  portions  the  tax  would  be 
heavier  in  proportion  to  the  number  of  hereditary 
transmissions  through  which  each  patrimonial  portion 
had  already  passed.  Naturally  the  different  patri- 
monial portions  would  be  considered  only  from  the 
quantitative  point  of  view  of  the  total  sum  of  their 
value,  and  not  distinguished  according  to  the  nature  of 
their  employment,  which  might  at  every  moment  under- 
go the  most  various  transformations.  I  have  called 
these  taxes  "  progressive  in  time  "  because  they  would 
increase  no  longer  in  proportion  to  the  size  of  the  estate, 
but,  on  the  average,  according  to  the  time  which  had 
respectively  elapsed  since  the  beginning  of  the  accumu- 
lation of  each  of  these  different  patrimonial  shares. 

The  object  in  view  in  such  a  modification  of  the  law 
of  property  was  that  of  constituting  a  gradual  and 
continuously  operative  process  of  reduction  into  collec- 
tive property  of  private  capitals,  not  only  of  those 
already  accumulated  in  the  past,  but  of  those  also 
continually  being  formed,  and  of  further  securing,  accord- 


240        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

ing  to  the  rate  of  progression  adopted,  a  more  or  less 
considerable  rapidity  of  that  process  of  socialization 
which  the  complex  circumstances  of  the  moment, 
political  or  economic,  rendered  the  most  appropriate. 
Besides,  this  would  be  a  greater  stimulus  to  thrift  and 
the  incessant  accumulation  of  new  capitals  than  the 
present  unlimited  testamentary  right,  by  this  very 
faculty  left  to  the  testator  of  disposing  much  more 
freely  of  the  property  amassed  by  his  own  labour  and 
deserts  than  of  the  property  that  he  had  merely  in- 
herited. In  this  way  the  law  of  property  thus  modified 
would  constitute  what  may  be  called  (from  analogy 
with  patents  which  assure  property  in  inventions 
for  a  certain  period  of  time)  a  "  patent  of  accumula- 
tion and  capitalization,"  limited  to  the  period  of  time 
rigorously  necessary  and  sufficient  to  constitute  the 
greatest  stimulus  to  labour  and  thrift.1 

As  we  have  seen,  there,  are  plenty  of  transformations 
of  the  law  of  property — and  here  I  have  mentioned 
only  some  of  the  most  characteristic — adaptable  to 
the  realization  on  a  vast  scale  of  that  nationalization 
of  private  capital  which  socialism  in  general,  more  or 
less  explicitly  or  implicitly,  has  always  deemed  indis- 
pensable to  the  effective  emancipation  of  a  great  part 
at  least  of  the  present  proletariat.  More  than  a  social- 
ism in  itself,  "  legal  "  socialism  is  therefore  presented 
as  the  system  capable  of  furnishing  to  the  various 

1  Vide  E.  Rignano,  Un  socialisme  en  harmonic  avec  la  doctrine  econo- 
mique  liberate,  Paris,  Giard  et  Briere,  1904  ;  Italian  edition,  Torino,  Bocca, 
1901,  ch.  ii  and  iii ;  and  the  two  little  propaganda  pamphlets,  by  the  same 
author,  La  question  de  I'heritage,  Paris,  Soc.  Nouv.  de.  libr.  et  d'edit,  1905. 
and  Generationenfolge  und  Progression  in  der  Erbschajtssteuer,  2nd 
edition,  Berlin,  Wigand,  1909. 


SOCIALISM  241 

systems  of  socialism  mentioned  above  the  means  of 
practical  realization  of  such  of  their  elements  as,  under 
the  test  of  facts,  have  shown  some  vitality.  Credit 
for  productive  co-operation,  agricultural  or  industrial, 
by  means  of  suitable  "  Labour  Banks  "  ;  the  national- 
ization or  municipalization  of  undertakings  which  are 
public  services  and  have  the  nature  of  monopolies  ; 
the  passing  into  the  domain  of  the  State  of  cultivable 
land  to  be  let  on  lease  to  private  employers  or  rural 
co-operative  societies  ;  the  transformation  into  common 
property  of  urban  estates ;  the  redemption  of  the 
public  debts  of  the  States,  of  provinces,  and  of  com- 
munes, and  the  substitution  of  revenues  for  our  present 
taxes — the  two  last  items  being  the  most  important 
desiderata  of  orthodox  economy  itself  :  not  one  of 
these  reforms  can  have  a  ghost  of  a  possible  chance 
of  development  on  broad  and  solid  foundations  if  the 
State  is  not  first  of  all  provided  with  the  means  of 
carrying  them  into  effect. 

"  Legal  "  socialism  is,  however,  presented  as  a  com- 
plete antithesis  to  "  collect! vist  "  socialism,  thanks  to 
its  "  liberal  "  aspect.  For  it  would  invest  the  State 
with  no  coercive  function,  but  only  with  that  of  provid- 
ing, by  appropriate  independent  organs,  an  increasing 
number  of  workers  with  the  means  indispensable  to 
their  work,  thus  freeing  them  from  their  present  depen- 
dence on  the  private  possessors  of  capital.  So  that  by 
thus  facilitating  as  far  as  possible  the  spontaneous 
association  and  co-operation  of  labour,  it  would  result 
in  a  still  greater  development  of  the  "  free-contract  " 
system  of  to-day. 

Finally,  "  legal  "   socialism  clearly   is  presented   not 

16 


242        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

as  a  new  regime  to  which  we  are  led  by  the  irresistible 
development  of  the  present  economic  process,  but  as 
a  radical  reform  of  the  law  of  property,  of  which  the 
realization  depends  only  on  the  conscious  action  of  that 
social  class  which  more  than  any  other  will  gain  thereby 
an  economic  advantage. 

Hence  the  whole  question  reduces  to  discovering,  as 
I  have  said  above,  if  the  proletariat  is  really  increasing 
its  class  power  with  respect  to  the  opposing  class,  and 
continuing  to  have  greater  and  more  weight  as  a  social 
factor,  and,  such  being  the  case,  if  it  will  then  be  able 
in  the  future  as  at  present  to  be  content  with  that 
pressure  exercised  on  what  we  call  social  legislation, 
or  if  it  will  not  rather  turn  and  converge  its  efforts  on 
"  legal  "  socialism  itself. 

To  the  second  question  we  can  but  reply  that 
historic  Materialism  teaches  us  how  each  social  class, 
once  it  has  attained  to  power  or  to  a  decisive  and 
preponderating  superiority  over  all  the  other  classes 
hitherto  alone  the  dominating  classes,  has  always 
shown  a  tendency  to  modify  in  its  own  favour  the 
law  of  property,  as  the  most  efficacious  and  the  best 
adapted  means  of  satisfying  promptly  its  own 
economic  interests.  And  so  there  remains  only  the 
first  question,  that  is,  if  the  proletariat  is  really 
increasing  incessantly  its  own  class  -  power  relative 
to  that  of  the  capitalist  class. 

Marx  saw  in  the  "  economic  homogeneity  "  of  the 
wage-earning  class,  at  present  without  means  of  pro- 
duction, and  also  in  their  continual  numerical 
increase,  the  great  power  of  the  proletariat.  But 
he  attributed  the  whole  of  the  weakness  of  the 


SOCIALISM  243 

capitalist  class  to  the  constant  diminution  in  the 
number  of  its  members,  finally  to  be  reduced  to 
a  few  magnates,  the  sole  people  in  whose  hands  all 
capital  will  remain. 

Now  it  is  not  at  all  true,  in  fact,  that  the  ranks  of 
the  capitalist  class  have  been  thinned,  or  that  they 
show  any  more  and  more  marked  tendency  to  become 
so.  Statistics  rather  show  us  that  the  number  of 
capitalists,  in  so  far  as  they  are  individuals  enjoying 
any  revenue  from  capital,  is  increasing  not  only  abso- 
lutely but  more  than  relatively  to  the  population.  The 
base  of  the  capitalist  pyramid  is  broadening  instead  of 
narrowing. 

What  has  contributed  and  is  contributing  sensibly 
to  this  phenomenon  is  the  new  intermediate  class  of 
small,  average,  and  large  "  employes  "  which  capitalism 
itself,  by  the  development  given  to  great  private  under- 
takings and  to  the  action  of  public  bodies,  has  substi- 
tuted in  part  for  that  of  the  old  independent  artisans 
who  have  now  almost  disappeared,  and  partly  to  the 
other  class  of  small  and  average  capitalist-employers 
whose  number  and  importance  have  really  diminished, 
at  least  relatively.  This  "  bureaucratic "  class  has 
largely  profited,  for  its  thrift,  from  the  above-mentioned 
division  of  the  capitalist  property  made  compatible, 
thanks  to  the  joint-stock  companies,  with  the  greater 
and  greater  concentration  of  undertakings.  In  its 
turn,  the  considerable  development  of  State  loans, 
together  with  provincial  and  communal  loans,  in 
consequence  of  the  increased  action  of  these  public 
bodies,  has  likewise  greatly  favoured  this  diffusion 
of  small  and  moderate  savings  among  the  "  bureau- 
cratic "  class. 


244        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

Of  this  new  middle  class,  whose  members,  in  addition 
to  the  wages  received  for  their  own  work,  enjoy  the 
income  arising  from  the  investment  of  their  savings, 
as  well  as  of  that  of  the  "  free  professions,"  which 
from  this  point  of  view  is  analogous,  the  socialist 
party  must  take  account  in  its  "  maximum  pro- 
gramme," if  it  is  not  to  find  in  it  an  implacable 
adversary  instead  of  a  valuable  and  powerful  ally. 

Now,  not  only  is  the  basis  of  the  capitalist  class 
broadening,  but  there  is  a  notable,  almost  hyper- 
trophic,  increase  of  its  mass  of  wealth,  especially  in 
the  higher  strata.  It  is  impossible  that  this  fact 
should  not  increase  and  go  on  increasing  the  class- 
power.  On  the  contrary,  as  an  intrinsic  and  deeply 
seated  cause  of  great  weakness,  itself  alone  perhaps 
more  powerful  than  all  the  other  favourable  causes 
put  together,  one  may  point  to  its  "  economic  hetero- 
geneity," which  brings  it  about  that  instead  of 
finding  ourselves  in  the  presence  of  a  single  class, 
we  meet  with  a  multitude  of  sub-classes  of  the 
most  varied  and  more  or  less  antagonistic  interests  : 
landed  property  on  the  one  hand  and  industrial 
commercial  property  on  the  other ;  protectionist 
manufacturers  whose  interests  are  opposed  to  those 
of  tradesmen  who  advocate  free-trade ;  high  finance 
of  speculation  in  conflict  with  productive  industry ; 
capitalist  employers  and  capitalist  holders  of  stock ; 
manufacturers  of  one  class  against  those  of  another ; 
stockholders  deriving  their  incomes  respectively  from 
different  sources ;  small  capitalists  against  average, 
and  average  against  great  capitalists,  etc.  We  know 
how  the  proletariat  has  not  lost  its  opportunity  of 


SOCIALISM  245 

profiting  by  this  intra-capitalist  antagonism,  and 
how  it  makes  one  conquest  after  another  by  utilizing 
the  aid  of  one  or  other  of  these  sub-classes. 

At  the  same  time,  the  proletariat,  which  has  already 
outstripped  in  number  all  the  other  social  classes  put 
together,  has  not  yet  ceased  also  to  grow,  as  we  have 
seen,  in  its  economic  class  power.  The  rapid  progress 
of  social  legislation  which  goes  on  under  the  steady 
pressure  of  an  organized  proletariat  shows  clearly 
enough  that  for  the  latter  a  continuous  increase  of 
power  is  a  fact. 

A  new  cause  of  weakness,  however,  is  now  arising 
for  the  proletariat,  exactly  analogous  to  that  which 
we  have  now  seen  to  be  so  menacing  to  the  capitalist 
class,  that  is,  the  loss  of  its  own  "  economic  homo- 
geneity." Side  by  side  with  certain  categories  of  work- 
men who  have  of  late  years  received  considerable 
increases  of  wages,  are  other  categories  who  continue 
to  receive  the  old  famine  rates  of  pay  ;  and  between 
these  two  extremes  are  all  possible  degrees  ;  and  in 
the  same  way  there  exist  all  possible  degrees  in  the 
hours  and  other  conditions  of  work.  Similarly,  side 
by  side  with  the  "  skilled  "  labourers  in  certain  of  the 
great  industries,  men  of  increasingly  high  level  of  profes- 
sional education,  there  are  others  who  have  remained 
quite  "  unskilled  "  in  other  sorts  of  production.  So 
that  never  perhaps  more  than  now  are  the  technical 
heterogeneity  and  the  diversity  of  the  surrounding 
conditions  of  the  different  industries  more  reflected  in 
the  economic  and  intellectual  conditions  of  the  respec- 
tive workmen.  At  the  same  time,  owing  to  the  fact 
that  wages  nowadays  follow  closely,  under  the  pressure 


246        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

of  the  working  masses,  the  favourable  conditions  of 
their  industries,  it  already  sometimes  happens  that 
in  the  field  of  economic  antagonisms  the  interests  of 
the  wage-earners  and  of  their  capitalist  employers  are 
often  so  bound  together  that  sometimes  the  working 
masses  are  dragged  into  an  economic  conflict  between 
different  undertakings  in  the  same  industry  or  between 
different  industries.  Further,  to  the  interests  of  the 
workers  or  employes  of  the  State  and  all  public  bodies, 
whose  increase  of  wages  may  be  covered  only  by  the 
taxes,  are  opposed  those  of  the  workers  in  private 
enterprises,  which,  wholly  or  partly,  directly  or  indi- 
rectly, have  to  bear  these  taxes.  Even  more  notable 
is  the  fact  that  from  the  great  mass  of  wage-earners 
has  already  more  than  once  been  detached  on  certain 
questions  the  small  fraction  of  workers  labouring  in 
co-operative  societies.  Side  by  side  with  labourers 
who  are  producing  commodities  of  prime  necessity 
there  is  a  daily  increase  in  the  number  of  workers  pro- 
ducing commodities  which  are  luxuries,  and  of  men  who 
are  serving  the  rich  classes  directly,  and  both  the  latter 
categories  would  find  a  decrease  in  the  demand  for  their 
work  were  there  too  sudden  a  drop  in  the  economic 
power  of  the  capitalist  class.  Finally,  the  modest 
savings  of  certain  classes  of  workmen,  cleverly  encour- 
aged by  the  capitalist  class  by  the  facilities  offered  for 
small  savings,  already  form  a  bond  of  union  between 
the  proletarian  tlite  and  the  class  of  small  capitalists. 
Let  us  remember  in  this  connection  the  biting  satire 
of  Richter  on  the  victorious  counter-revolution  on 
the  very  morrow  of  the  expropriation  and  socializa- 
tion of  all  the  private  capital  that  a  triumphant 


SOCIALISM  247 

socialism  had  carried  out,  a  counter-revolution 
arising  from  the  protest  of  the  small  depositors  in 
the  savings  banks. 

This  "  heterogeneity  "  has  already  had  as  one  effect 
that  we  have  often  to  deal  with  many  proletarian  parties 
rather  than  with  a  single  socialist  party.  It  may  even 
be  said  that  it  is  permanently  reflected  in  the  funda- 
mental split  between  the  revolutionary  syndicalists 
and  the  reformist  socialists.  The  former,  for  the  most 
part  consisting  of  the  working  masses  who  have  profited 
less  than  their  brethren  by  "  social  legislation,"  reproach 
the  others  that  their  "  minimum  programme "  does 
not  represent  the  slightest  step  forward  towards  the 
"  maximum  programme "  of  socialization  of  the 
instruments  and  means  of  production,  the  sole  reform 
necessary,  they  say,  which  at  the  same  time  and 
appreciably  will  profit  the  whole  of  the  proletariat 
without  distinction.  But  they  still  cling  to  the  old 
discredited  doctrine  of  the  Marxian  catastrophe,  that 
a  revolutionary  tempest  can  install  the  new  regime  in 
twenty-four  hours. 

It  seems,  therefore,  that  if  the  possibility  still  exists 
of  blending  the  whole  proletariat  into  one  party,  this 
can  only  happen  if  a  "  medium  programme,"  serving 
as  a  point  of  departure  for  the  maximum,  should 
build  up  again  in  the  desideratum  common  to  the 
whole  proletariat  the  old  and  now  threatened  "  homo- 
geneity." x 

If  I  have  dwelt  at  such  length  on  these  considera- 

1  Eugenic  Rignano,  Partita  socialista  unico  o  partiti  proletari  molte- 
plici  *  "  Riforma  Sociale,"  Torino,  year  XII,  fasc.  8 ;  ditto,  Per  un 
programma  media,  "  Critica  Sociale,"  Milano,  year  XIV,  n.  10. 


248       ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC   SYNTHESIS 

tions — a  longer  development  of  which  will  be  found  in 
my  previously  quoted  volume — it  is  for  the  purpose 
of  showing  more  clearly  that  the  question  as  to  the 
coming  or  non-coming  of  socialism  and  its  eventual 
form,  that  question  so  interesting  even  from  the  purely 
scientific  point  of  view,  must  be  regarded  with  respect 
to  the  equilibrium  and  the  resultant  of  various  social 
forces,  according  to  their  respective  "  weights  "  and 
economic  interests,  and  not  from  the  "fatalistic"  aspect 
of  the  irresistible  tendency  of  the  mechanical  process 
of  economic  evolution. 

This  "  fatalistic  "  conception  breaks  down  when 
facts  are  impartially  examined.  In  the  preceding 
essay  I  have  already  had  occasion  to  remark  the 
fundamental  contradiction  in  which  the  historic 
Materialism  of  Marx  and  his  disciples  is  struggling, 
which  announces  on  the  one  hand  that  the  class 
struggle  is  the  arbiter  and  the  maker  of  history,  while 
at  the  same  time  it  bases  the  whole  of  social  evolu- 
tion on  the  blind  play  of  purely  economic  phenomena. 

One  great  merit  of  the  fatalistic  socialism  of  Marx 
has  undoubtedly  been  that  it  has  so  powerfully  aided 
the  historical  school  to  modify  radically  the  views  of 
the  classic  economics  on  the  immutability  of  economic 
laws  and  relations,  and  that  it  has  furthered  the  most 
ardent  study  of  the  succession  of  the  different  social 
regimes  by  going  back  to  the  remotest  antiquity  or  to 
the  beginnings  of  new  modern  colonies. 

On  the  other  hand,  a  great  merit  of  the  "  legal  " 
socialism  has  been  that  it  also  contributed  to  the  radical 
modification  of  the  metaphysical  concept  of  a  "  natural 
law,"  absolute  and  immutable,  from  which  Spencer 


SOCIALISM  249 

himself  in  his  Justice  could  not  get  free.  It  is  sufficient 
here  to  recall  the  works  of  Sumner  Maine  and  De  Lave- 
leye,  the  most  suggestive  perhaps  of  all  in  the  presenta- 
tion of  the  great  variety  of, the  past  forms  of  law,  and 
therefore  in  proving  the  great  variability  of  which  all 
law  in  general  and  that  of  property  in  particular  is 
susceptible.  Nor  must  we  forget  the  applications  which 
from  John  Stuart  Mill  to  Adolphe  Wagner  have  been 
made  of  the  utilitarianism  of  Bentham  even  to  the  law 
of  property,  according  to  which  the  greatest  social 
utility  of  this  law,  and  of  one  or  other  of  its  particular 
forms,  may  alone  constitute,  according  to  the  time  and 
the  circumstances,  its  justification  and  its  relative 
"  equity." 

But,  I  repeat,  neither  the  simple  evolutionism  of 
the  "  fatalist  "  economist  nor  the  simple  legal  evolution- 
ism (which  claims  to  predict  the  tendency  of  future 
transformations  of  law  from  those  of  the  past)  can 
by  themselves,  and  without  the  detailed  analysis  of 
present  society  in  the  different  social  classes,  suffice 
to  indicate  to  us  even  vaguely  the  future  of  that 
society. 

In  every  case,  whatever  may  be  this  more  or  less 
unknown  future,  we  can  at  least,  as  a  conclusion  from 
all  that  I  have  said,  affirm  one  fact  which  is  of  good 
omen.  It  is  that  the  awakening  of  a  collective  conscience 
in  the  class  less  favoured  by  fate,  a  class  which  consti- 
tutes so  large  and  hitherto  so  disparaged  a  portion  of 
our  fellow-creatures,  has  in  itself  enlarged  and  improved 
the  whole  of  the  social  conscience  ;  while  the  increased 
power  of  that  class  has  already  rendered  less  unequal 
the  different  social  forces  in  conflict.  The  result  is  a 


250        ESSAYS  IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 

greater  social  sensitiveness  to  the  pain  and  suffering 
under  which  innumerable  human  beings  are  still  groan- 
ing, and  the  formation  of  a  new  and  supreme  ideal  of 
greater  equity.  So  that  we  may  now  hope  that  what- 
ever be  the  final  issue  of  the  shock  of  future  antagon- 
isms, humanity  may  cast  away  its  dread  of  foundering 
in  still  deeper  abysms,  and  that  in  all  confidence  and 
security  it  may  ascend  to  loftier  heights  and  happier 
destinies. 


INDEX    OF   AUTHORS    CITED 


Abercrombie,   136  n. 
Allen,  Grant,  162  n. 
AUonnes,  R.  d',  107  n.,  123  n. 
Azam,  149 

Bain,  117  n.,  119,  120  n.,  133  n. 

Baldwin,  129 

Bentham,  249 

Bernard,  Claude,  22,  72,  85,  104 

Bernstein,  225 

Binet,  134  n. 

Blanc,  Louis,  228 

Born,  68,  69 

Buchez,  228 

Buckle,  167 

Butler,  S.,  50,  105 

Carpenter,  137  n. 
Castle,  v.  Davenport 
Channing,  177  n. 
Ciamician,  78,  88 
Comte,  175,  214 
Cope,  50 
Cuvier,  29 

Dallinger,  101 
Darwin,  C.,  30,  69 
Darwin,  F.,  21,  63,  105 
Davenport,  102  n.,  103  n. 
De  Vries,  33,  46,  66 
Duhem,  176 
Durkheim,  25 

Eimer,  47 


Engelmann,  85 
Engels,  195 
Espinas,  157 

Flechsig,  81,  106 
Foucart,  152  n.,  154  n. 
Frazer,  162  «. 

Galton,  32,  34,  41,  66,  115,  157 

Garten,  61,  62 

Gennep,  Van,  161 

George,  228 

Giard,  109,  now.,  inn. 

Goblet  d'AlvieUa,  162  «. 

Guyau,  169  n. 

Haberlandt,  21 

Haeckel,  50 

Hering,  50,  71,  72,  81,   105 

Hertwig,  72,  83 

Hertz,  85 

Hoffding,  25,  187  n. 

Hubert,  162 

Hume,  152 

James,  123,  129,  130  «. 
Janet,  148 
Jennings,  91,  99,  131 


Kautsky,  225 

Kidd,  38,  167  n.,  178,  179 


Lamarck,  28,  29, 


,  97,  156 


351 


252 


ESSAYS   IN   SCIENTIFIC   SYNTHESIS 


Lange,  123 
Lassalle,  228 
Laveleye,  De,  238,  249 
Lecaillon,  now. 
Lehmann,   113 
Leroy-Beaulieu,  226,  227 
Letourneau,   i66».,  169  n. 
Loeb,  40 

Loria,  190,  201,  231 
Lubbock,   167  n. 
Luther,  197 

Macario,  149 

Mach,  72,  86,  89,  131  n. 

Maine,  Sumner,   160,  236,  249 

Malthus;  224 

Marx,  38,   189,  218  et  seq. 

Maudsley,  73,  124,   133  n. 

Maupas,  86 

Maury,   138 

Mauss,  162 

Maxwell,  Clerk,   10 

Mendel,  41,  66 

Mesnel,   149 

Meumann,   123  n. 

Mill,  J.  S.,   183,    185  n.,    187  n. 

238,  249 

Morgan,  Lloyd,  107  n.,  in  n. 
Muller,  F.,  50 
Miiller,  G.  E.,   113 
Muller,  J.,  71,  72 

Nageli,  47 
Neal,   102  n. 

Orr,  50 

Ostwald,  86  et  seq.,  127  n. 

Pareto,   198 

Pfeffer,  60 

Pieron,  93  n.,   103  n. 


Pillon,   112,   113  n. 
Proudhon,  228 

Quinton,  99 

Reinach,  S.,  159  n.,  160 

Renan,  167  n.,  177  n.,  197 

Rendal,  125 

Ribot,  95,  97,  107  n.,  ii2,  116, 
n8».,  119  n.,  120  n.,  122,  125, 
126 ».,  127  n.,  133,  134  n., 
136  n.,  137 

Ricardo,  228 

Roux,  38,  68,  69,  94  n.,  195 

Schaffle,  226 

Schiff,  91 

Schneider,  94  n. 

Schopenhauer,  96 

Semon,  50,   105 

Senior,  221 

Sergi,   123 

Sherrington,  106,  107  n.,  122  »., 
129 

Spencer,  H.,  46,  86,  114  n., 
118  n.,  120  n.,  152,  165  n., 
167  n.,  195,  202,  227,  248 

Stahl,   1 02  n. 

Stout,   122 

Taine,   147,   176 
Tylor,  25 

Valh.   187  n. 
Verworn,  77 

Wagner,  A.,  236,  238,  248 
Wallace,  A.  R.,  228 
Webb,  S.  and  B.,  209 
Weismann,  33,  34, 46,  66, 180, 181 
Wundt,  73 


INDEX    OF    SUBJECTS 


Adaptations,   101 
Assimilation,  22,  82 
Association,  limitation  of,  81 

"  Behaviour "     of    organisms, 

90 
Biogenesis,  50 

Calendar,  functions  of,  162 

Capacity  factor,  74 

Capital,  Marx  on,  218 

Catalysis,  86 

Centro  -  epigenetic     hypothesis, 

54 

Consciousness,  c.  v. 
Continuity,   of  germ   plasm,   34 

Double  personality,  152 

Emotions,  121 

Energy,  mnemic  property  of  ner- 
vous, 70 
Evolution,  c.  ii 
Experiment,  10 

Finali sm,  22,   130 
Germ-plasm,  continuity  of,  34 
Indecision,   125 

Land,      229 ;      ownership    of, 
193 


Levy,     progression    in     time, 

239 
Love,  maternal,  109 

Manchester  School,  202 
Materialism,  historic,  c.  vii 
Mathematics,  u,  12 
Maturation,  42,  69 
Memory,  c.  iii 

Neo-Darwinism,  31,  181 
Neo-Laraarckism,  31 
Nervions,  75 

Pain,  121 

Particulate  inheritance,  32 

Physiologists  and  psychologists, 

24 

Pleasure,  121 
Property,  law  of,  210 
Psychologists  and   physiologists, 

24 

Recapitulation,  50 
Religion,  c.  vi 
Reproduction,  sexual,  40 

Selection,  natural,  32,  46 
Self-preservation,   1 19 
Sexual  instinct,  94 
Sin,   160 
Socialism,  c.  viii 
"  Sweating,"  210 


254         ESSAYS    IN  SCIENTIFIC  SYNTHESIS 


Symbiosis,  109 
Synapsis,  69 

Synthesis,  and  Evolution  Theory, 
c.  ii 


Taboo,  1 60 

Tendencies,  the  affective,  c.  iv 

Theory,  in  science,  c.  i 


Transference,  of    affective    ten- 
dencies, 97 

Vitalism,  17 

War,  171 

"  Weights  "  of  classes,  196 
"  Will,"  the  potential  factor  in 
vital  energy,  78,  121 


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